


Randy Cunningham 9th Grade Pony

by Snowstormbringer



Category: MLP - Fandom, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, rc9gn
Genre: Gen, practice writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-01-15 13:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 43,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12322161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowstormbringer/pseuds/Snowstormbringer
Summary: Randy Cunningham in the MLP universe. With the occasional Secret Trio or other cartoon, as well as the occasional OC. Some of my head cannons, or ones from others I like included.





	1. First Flight

**First Flight**

   Randy gave the foreign appendages a experimental flap. The wings answered accordingly, making him shiver at the foreign sensation. When the Nomicon said he was ready to learn the art of flying he was overjoyed, but know he didn't know what to think. Luckily they were only there when he wore the mask.He had stupidly told the Nomicon he had this and didn't need its help, resulting in it angrily kicking him out. He had decided to practice on the school roof, and Howard tagged along. After at least an hour of face planting and Howard dying of laughter he went crawling back to Nomicon.

"In order to spread your wings, you must first forget being grounded" Was all that it answered with.

Confused Randy left the Nomicon.

"Soooo... what did it say?" Asked Howard eating a bag of chips he must have gotten while Randy was in the Nomicon.

"Something about spreading my wings and forgetting being grounded" Randy responded.

"What does that mean?"

"Does it look I know?"

"Why don't you ask that Dragon kid, he has wings"

"His name is Jake and HOWARD YOU'RE A GENIUS!"Randy shouted running off to text Jake.

"I am?"

* * *

 

    A few days later Randy sat outside the school in his mask waiting for Jake, who was late. Tapping his hoof impatiently and shivered as he felt his new wings open half way.

"Ninja?"

Randy jolted at the familiar voice. "oh, hey Theresa"He quickly stopped a face hoof, he forgot he was wearing his mask.

The Pegasus in question giggled " what are you doing?"

"Waiting for a friend, he's late. What are you doing here so late? "

Theresa grabbed her baton from her saddlebag "twirling practice"

"oh" Randy found himself observing Theresa's wings as they gently flapped. "how do they make it look so easy" he thought to himself.

"soooo... The wings-"

"Don't ask" Randy half snapped half muttered.

Theresa pulled back "Do you know how to fly?"

"that's why I'm waiting for my friend "

"I can show you how"

"Hmmm?" 

"I mean, you do a lot for us so -"

"HEADS UP!"

Randy jerked his head toward the new voice only to get bowled over. He looked up to see Danny Grinning down at him. A pair of fake, see-through wings made of ectoplasm open half way.

"Danny!, as happy as I am to see you where's Jake, and what's with the ectoplasm wings?"

"Jake had something come up , something about warring breezies. Sooooo he asked me to help you instead!

Randy couldn't help but groan as he watched Theresa fly away.

* * *

 

Half-hour later Randy grinned widely as he hovered off the ground. He was doing it! It only took Danny shoving him off a roof and shouting “FLY”

"ready to go higher?"

Randy looked up at Danny, his excitement and confidence taking over. "Heck yeah!"

   Randy look around him with a look of awe. Danny had just lead him to the sky above the clouds. 

"Now I know why you and Jake said I was missing out"

Danny laughed from the cloud he had perched himself on "yeah?"

"yeah!"

 "well come on Ninja" Danny quipped jumping of the cloud to take to the sky once more.

Randy experimentally let his fore legs down to run through the cloud. The feeling was indescribable.

* * *

 

       Randy was exhausted by the time he landed on the ground. His wings hung limply at his side. He removed his mask, storing it in his saddlebag he started walking home. He had just left the school grounds when he stopped and stared blankly ahead. He understood the lesson now. 


	2. Inside the Nomicon Part 1

**Inside the Nomicon Part 1**

SMACK!

Randy Groaned and rubbed his head. He looked up at Nomicon, who stood over him with a look of irritation on his face.

“What the Juice was that for?!”

Nomicon shrugged “you were getting on my nerves” He calmly stated before walking away.

Randy stared at him before galloping after him “hey Nomi?”

“Yes?”

Randy opened his mouth before closing it, the question he wanted to ask had been bothering him since Nomicon had revealed his form which was a, pony? Deer? Dragon? He desperately wanted to ask Nomicon what he was, but he was afraid he would anger or upset the book. He found himself fidgeting with his scarf instead of asking the question.

Nomicon sighed, he could tell something was bothering his student. He turned to face the young ninja to see him staring at the ground and playing with his scarf. Shaking his head he walked back to his student.

“Randy?” 

The ninja jump out of his thoughts at the sound of his name. Looking up at Nomicon he smiled sheepishly.

“Whats up Nomi?”

Nomicon sighed and rolled his bright green eyes.

“What is bothering you Randy?”

Randy felt as if he was shrinking under Nomicon’s gaze, he would have to ask his question in order to answer Nomi honesty. Taking a deep breath he made his decision.

“Whatareyou?” his question tumbled out in a jumble of words. Looking up he saw Nomi raise his dot like eyebrows.

“Pardon?” 

Groaning Randy repeated his question “what are you?” Now that the question was out Randy waited for the answer with his heart in his throat. 

The Nomicon was an interesting creature that looked like a combination of a unicorn, deer, and a dragon. With a body like a pony his, black fur ended to show his red hooves. His tail was like a dragons but with fur. A red, backwards curved horn sat in the center of his fore head it was paired with a set of antlers that were a red-orange color. A pair of what looked like thick long whiskers sat on the end of his muzzle, one for each side. They were bright green to match the marking that covered the lower half of his face and went up in between his eyes. The top half of his neck and back was covered black scales with some scales red and bright green forming two stripes that run down the entire length of body ending at the beginning of his tail. His scaled stomach was the color of old pages with light brown speckles and his forelegs had four oval scales bright green in color. All four of legs had green sock markings that went half way up. And to top it all of his vibrant red mane formed bangs with a longer back with the end peaking around his long thin ears. The mane continued down his neck, back, and ended at the base of his tail with a fur of the same color draping of the back of his legs and the end and  bottom of his tail.

Nomicon simply shook his head at his student's question.

“I’m a Kirin”

“A what?”

“A Kirin, or a Qilin. depends on who you ask” 

Randy stared at his teacher, another question bubbling to the surface of his mind.

“ So if your a Keerine?”

Nomicon stifled a laugh at his students horrible pronunciation “ it’s pronounced k-ih-r-ee-n”

“Okay, So if you're a Kirin, why don’t I see any other Kirins outside of here?”

Nomicons face fell. “Cause I’m the only one left” Nomi turned away from Randy and walked away visibly upset.

Randy felt bad, he didn’t mean to upset Nomi, he was just curious. He decided to go find Nomi and apologise. It took awhile, but when he found Nomi he was at the waterfall they used for training. Nomi was sitting at the edge of the water with his head hanging low. Randy took a deep breath and approached his teacher.

Nomicon sensed his student walk up and sit beside him and he already had an idea why. 

“ If you came to apologise don’t, you did nothing wrong”

He felt his student stiffen before scooching closer to him. He could Practically feel the question on Randy’s lips.

“What happened?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Nomicon's design since it's quite complicated  
>  https://snowstormbringer.deviantart.com/art/Ninja-Nomicon-694647899


	3. Inside the Nomicon Part 2

**Inside the Nomicon Part 2**

He felt his student stiffen before scooching closer to him. He could Practically feel the question on Randy’s lips.

“What happened?

Nomicon sat up and took a deep breath. “Are you familiar with The War of Chaos?”

“Sounds familiar, think we talked about it earlier this year.”

Nomicon shook his head at his student “ That war was the cause of the deaths of three species”

“Is that a riddle orrrrrr…?”

“It’s not a riddle Young Ninja”

Randy started to feel even more nervous than he already was. Nomi never called him Young Ninja, unless he was being seriously serious about something. “So were Kirins one of the species that…. Died?”

“yes ,, along with draconequus and alicorns”

A look of confusion spread across Randy’s face “but there are still alicorns around today.”

Now it was Nomicon’s turn to be confused, but it was quickly replaced with excitement. “There are?”

“Yeah why did you think the species was dead?”

“Cause before I was trapped in this book form, there were only two alicorns left. And they were both female.”

Randy was quiet for a moment processing what Nomicon had said. “Wait, how many survivors were there?”

Nomicon’s face fell at the question. He stood and walked a few steps away. “ from what I remember for just us foals, four, One draconequus, two alicorns, and me.” Nomi turned to face Randy, a small smile on his face. “We had grown quite close by the time we were adults.” His face fell “sadly all I remember is their names”

* * *

 

Randy felt as if he should stop asking but concern for his teacher and his own curiosity egged him on. “What were their names?”

Nomicon wouldn't admit it but he was happy that he was talking about his  old friends. “Well the draconequus was Discord and the alicorns were Celestia and Luna”

“CELESTIA AND LUNA???!!!! LIKE IN  _ PRINCESS _ CELESTIA AND LUNA??!!” Randy didn’t mean to shout, but Nomi knew Princess Celestia and Luna, Mabey. 

Nomi knew it was a bad idea to get his hopes up, but he did anyway. “ a white alicorn with a flowing blue, green, purple and pink mane and a sun cutie mark?”

“ that’s Princess Celestia!”

“Then going from that that Luna is dark blue, a semi-transparent night sky mane, and a moon cutie mark”

“Yes!”

“They’re still alive!?...Wait, Princess?”

Randy nodded vigorously “yeah they are the rulers of Equestria! Bruce right?”

Nomicon thought for a while before smiling. “I wouldn’t care if they were the poorest ponies in Equestria, They are, or were my friends. But yeah I guess that’s Pretty…. Bruce. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A friendly reminder that I'm a beginner writer, please let me know if you see any typos


	4. Train Ride

**Train Ride**

Randy had never been more excited in his life. He won two backstage passes to the next Wonderbolts performance!

“Howard look!” Randy squealed showing the passes to him.

The pudgy unicorn looked up from his game before scoffing at the passes. “ why the juice would you even apply for that stupid contest Cunningham? We’re not even Pegasi”

Randy’s face fell at his friend's reaction “you don’t have to be a pegasi to like the Wonderbolts Howard”

“Yeah? But we can’t walk on clouds.” 

“The performance is in Canterlot, and even the Cloudsdale the stadium is made to hold all ponies”

“Still dumb”

Howard, stop being so wonk”

“I’m being the wonk one?”

“You know what, I wanted to spend a ninja free day with you and you refuse, because you don’t want to do what I want to do for once. I’ll find somepony else to go with!”

“Good luck shoob”

* * *

 

Randy sighed as he trotted away from what remained of Mcfist’s latest robot. He left The Wonderbolts performance was tomorrow and he still had yet to find someone to go with. Theresa had a competition, Julian said something about a fear of heights, and Juggo and accordion Dave said they weren't interested, he even asked Danny and Jake. Sitting down at his spot at the lunch table Howard turned to look at him.

“So, find anypony to go with you yet?”

Randy grumbled at his smugness and was about to answer when a flash from the nomicon caught his attention. “Nomicon”He muttered getting up and heading towards the nearest bathroom. 

“You got the stupid book to go with you???” Howard asked looking up to see Randy heading towards the bathroom. “Oh, Nomicon as in The Nomicon wants you”

Having heard Howard’s question Randy grinned, he had an idea.

* * *

 

Randy face planted in the Nomicon, shaking his head he looked up at the sky waiting for the lesson to appear.

“There is no lesson Young Ninja, I just wanted to talk to you.”

Randy turn to address Nomicon walking toward him in all his Kirin glory.  “That’s O.K. I wanted to ask you something as well”

Nomicon simply blinked “What’s up with you and Howard? As much as I despise him, his friendship has been proven to be important to you. So this argument you two are having concerns me.”

Randy wasn’t surprised by Nomicon’s concern, he was always making sure Randy was mental health was 100% “It’s not really anything for you to worry about. It’s just, I won these tickets to a Wonderbolts performance in Canterlot and Howard doesn't want to go cause he doesn’t  like the Wonderbolts. I said I’d go with somepony else and responded with good luck , it’s like he thinks he’s the only pony worth hanging out with but if he doesn’t want to do something then I can’t either.”

Nomicon stayed silent while his student as he ranted, waiting for him to finish getting all the built up frustration off his chest. “Why don’t you just go alone?”

“Cause I don’t want to go alone and it would just prove Howard right”

“You got to have more than just Howard for friends”

“ I do, but they’re all busy”

“Even ghost boy, and the dragon?”

“Both have family trips”

Nomicon sighed “ you’re telling me all your friends are busy and can’t go with you?”

“Not counting you, yes”

“Excuse me?”

Randy started to regret his decision, but there was no going back now. “Do… You want to go see The Wonderbolts with me?”

Nomicon stared at his student, not sure how to respond. “I’m not busy, but I haven't been outside of this book for years. Everything has changed and I don’t how to act in your world”

Randy visibly deflated “you’re right asking you was stupid”

“I didn't say it was a bad idea, I just need some time to think about it. Whens this show?” 

Randy perked up “sorry for being last minute butI leave for Canterlot tomorrow”

“Alright give me tonight to think about it”

“But what if you say no?”

“Then go alone and show Howard you don’t need him to have a good time”

* * *

 

Nomicon was beginning to regret his decision, he had said yes. But wasn’t the problem he was quite amazed by how much things had changed while he was in his book form. It was all the ponies staring at him, he was significantly taller than all of them and the fact that he was an unknown species. He stood out like a sore thumb. He leaned toward Randy. “I’m going to have to return to my book form soon, just to save energy”

Randy looked up from his game “ O.K just let me know when “

“Can we do it now”

“Yeah just let me finish this boss”

Nomicon sighed and looked at around the train, the ponies who were staring at him quickly averted their gazes. His gaze fell on a purple Alicorn who quickly looked away and joined the conversation with the other ponies that were at her booth.

* * *

 

“Twilight darling, I don’t care how strange somepony looks. Staring just isn’t polite, let alone princess like”

Twilight turn to Rarity and gave her a sheepish smile. She had been staring at the Kirin since he had boarded the train, mainly because Celestia told her they were extinct.  Yet there one was. “Sorry Rarity, but do know what he his?”

“He looks like a dragon deer! Or a deer dragon which one sounds better to you!?” Pinkie chirped and she would have continued if AppleJack had not cut her off

“Does it really matter what he is, I doubt it’s something we should worry about. He’s on ah train in the middle of the day for crying out loud”

Twilight cast a quick glance at the kirin to see he had left ,along with the earth pony he was sharing a booth with. “Where’d he go?”

“Probably to get some food, it is lunch time” Pinkie said jumping out of the booth “at least I think it is, I’m hungry and it’s afternoon so it must be lunch time!” 

The rest watched Pinkie bounce down the aisle and disappear through the train cars door.

“So… Why are we making a big deal over the the unknown pony?” Fluttershy whispered.

“That’s a kirin guys!” Twilight whispered yelled.

“Ah what know?”

“A kirin, I read about them awhile back and when I asked celestia about them, she told me they were extinct!”  

“Well, that explains why you were staring. But that doesn't excuse it” Rarity stated, taking a hairbrush out of her saddlebag and fixing her mane.

“I know. But think about it! If there’s one here in Equestria there might be a small pocket of them that lived! Maybe they even have their own kingdom! 

“Twilight calm down, For all we know these kirin could be just as rare as alicorns” 

“Yeah, how bout instead of kicking up a ruckus, we talk to him.”

“I agree with AppleJack… as long as I don’t have to do it”

* * *

 

Randy trotted back to seat with a plate or food from the Dining car. After Nomicon changed back to his book form he hid him in his saddlebag and grabbed some food. After sitting down he pulled out his game and continued playing as he ate. After a while he became aware of somepony standing next to him. Pausing his game he looked up to see a purple alicorn he recognized from the news. Momentarily confused Randy stared at her, then realized she most likely saw Nomicon and wanted to ask about him. Deciding to play it cool Randy put on a smile “ can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Twilight Sparkle”

“ I know who you are”

“You do?”

“You’re all over the news, how would anyone not know you”

“ well, anyways I was wondering where your friend went?”

“Who?” 

“The kirin you were sitting with”

Randy was taken aback by the fact that Twilight knew what Nomi was, then again she was a princess. “ how did you know what he was?”

“I read about them, plus Princess Celestia told me about them when I was her student”

Randy may have been known for his obliviousness, but even he could see Twilight’s poorly contained excitement. He had already given away that he knew Nomicon. So it was either convince her to go away or convince Nomicon to come out and talk. Both were highly unlikely, so might as well try both. “I can understand your curiosity but as his friend he trust me and I can’t talk behind his back like this” 

“That’s okay I wanted to talk to him, I just don’t know where he went”

Randy’s fake smile grew “okay, let me go find him. But a word of warning, he’s quite shy so if he doesn’t want to talk there is nothing I can do”

“Thanks”

Randy quickly trotted to the bathroom at the far end of the train and pulled out Nomicon. Before he could even do anything Nomi transformed. 

“Please tell me you heard everything” Randy pleaded.

“I did and don’t worry, I got this” Nomicon sighed, marching out of the bathroom.


	5. WonderBolt

**WonderBolt**

Randy stood in the Canterlot’s empty,  Wonderbolts stadium with his mask on staring at the sky. In one fluid motion he jumped into the air and his suit formed a pair of feathered wings, clumsily carrying him into the sky. After the Wonderbolts performance Nomicon admitted he was impressed and that  “ _ if he could learn stuff like that he would be a great ninja”  _ Randy decided to take advantage of the the fact that he was staying in Canterlot for the weekend and practice in the stadium. After a minute or two he managed to reach a stray cloud and land, already breathing heavy. Looking around he spotted a cloud ring meant for the flyers to speed through, opening his wings he made his way over to it. His wings were screaming in protest by the time he reached it and in a moment of clumsiness he suddenly decreased altitude, his front hooves hitting the ring. “Thinking” quick he folded his wings and balanced on his front hooves performing a hoof-stand in the center of the ring.  Looking down Randy realized just how high up he was. He gulped and tried to stop shaking, his mind freezing.

* * *

 

Rainbow Dash walked through the crowd of ponies at the after party. Among them were her friends, news ponies, and VIPs, which included the princesses and some Mcfist pony. She enjoyed the praise from them for hours before she started to feel tired. Leaving the party she walked past the stadium, a bit of movement caught her eye. Looking over she saw a small Pegasus. What made him interesting to her was the ninja outfit he was wearing, it covered everything except his eyes. She could see the bit of coat between his eyes was a light peach. His tail was purple in color which probably meant his mane was too. Rainbow expected his wings to be peach too, but they matched his suit instead, black with red flight feathers. “ _ Probably dyed” _ Rainbow thought to herself, even though she had never heard of dying feathers. The Pegasus was performing a hoof-stand in one of the rings that were used in the performance, his cobalt blue eyes focused on the ground.  Her interest was peaked, Rainbow made her way down to the front seats and sat down to watch the Pegasus.

* * *

 

Randy finally came back to reality. Taking to deep, calming breath he flipped his hind legs over the rest of him so he was hanging facing away  from the ring. He used his hind legs to gain enough momentum to let go of the ring and turn around midair to grab it again. “Now the hard part” He whispered to himself and let go of the ring. He closed his eyes and let gravity take over, unaware of the blue Pegasus preparing to zoom in and catch him.

Just as Rainbow was about to take flight when the Pegasus turned in mid air and flung open his wings letting him glide safely to the ground. Rainbow let go of the breath she was holding and started clapping causing the Pegasus to jump in surprise.

Randy was not expecting an “applause” when he reached the ground, jerking towards the source of the noise revealed a blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane.

“It needed to be about 20% cooler, but impressive” She said with a smirk on her face.

“ who are you” Randy asked taking a defensive stance.

“Names Rainbow Dash” The pegasus answered,flying down to stand in front of him “what about you?”

“Ninja”

“Ninja…..” Rainbow dragged the name out looking for a last part. 

Randy’s mind reeled for an answer the ninja never needed a last part. Well why did the nomicon chose him? Nomicon said he was chosen because he had the heart of a hero, so “Heart!, Ninja Heart”

“Well Ninja Heart, what's got you here so late?”

“Practicing , you?”

“After party from today’s performance”

“I thought you looked familiar” Randy said perking up realizing this was the newest Wonderbolt “So this was your very first show today?” 

Rainbow dash scoffed “darn right,I was totally awesome wasn’t I?”

Randy nodded enthusiastically 

“RAINBOW DASH! WHERE ARE YOU? WE HAVEN’T FINISHED THE CAKE YET!”

Rainbow Dash laughed “ well looks like they noticed I wasn’t there, time to go back” She turned around “ why don’t you join me? Pretty sure the others would like to meet you”

Randy stared at Rainbow, “uhhhhh… yeah sure” He chuckled nervously.

“It’s okay, come on I want you to meet the others”


	6. Lost and found part 1

**Lost and Found Part 1**

Randy felt the air being knocked out of him as he collided with a tree. Groaning he stood up and faced the stanked pony. Who ever they were they were a nasty monster, a large armored dragon like creature. A dragon monster

“Alright” Randy huffed pulling out his sword “Let's dance” Bolting around the dragon monster, his eyes scanned for the stanked object he needed to destroy.

Unfortunately he didn’t see the tail heading straight for his face.  For the second time that day he was sent flying into a tree. The dragon monster roared and ran past him toward town.

“Hey! Where you going?” Randy shouted galloping after the runaway dragon monster. 

Randy chased the dragon monster into the center of town when he noticed something weird, royal guards had joined the fight. Buy this time Randy had wrapped his scarf around the dragon monsters neck, and was being dragged behind it.  

“Why don’t you leave this to the professionals kid” one of them shouted.

“ I’m THE NINJA! I am professional!” Randy shouted back.

“Well great job doing your job, Ninja!” 

Randy growled and climbed  on to the dragon monster’s back, making his way to its neck. A flash of green caught his eye, a locket was around the dragon monster’s neck. He started to make his way over to it when he heard the guards get more panicked, looking up he saw the Princess. She was talking to some news ponies and was unaware of the upcoming danger. Foregoing the locket Randy wrapped his scarf around the monster dragons mouth and pulled, the dragon monster’s mouth snapped shut and it’s head jerked toward Randy. The dragon monster stopped and jerked its head back towards Princess Celestia, taking Randy with them.

Randy hung in a Spiderman like pose from the dragon monster’s bound mouth, high enough to be face to face with a startled Princess Celestia. He became aware of all the news ponies taking pictures, Front page he bet.

“ With all do respect your highness, I suggest you leave” Randy stated in his calmest voice.

The Princess shook her head and started to leave, her guards following close behind. 

 Once they were gone Randy swung himself back onto the dragon monster’s neck and used his “Ninja Sai!” to break the locket’s chain. Green fog left the dragon monster leaving behind a confused royal guard. Randy looked at the locket, inside was a picture of the guard and a mare, who looked like she was expecting a foal. 

Randy gave the locket back to it’s rightful owner and “Smoke Bombed”.

* * *

 

“YOU SAVED THE PRINCESS!” was what Howard greeted him with when he back.

“Yeah, I’m not blind Howard” Randy mumbled trudging to the nearest bathroom to take care of his injuries.

Howard stopped thinking of all of the ways they could take advantage from Randy saving the Princess and turned his attention to him “ Gee… You alright Bro?”

“ yeah, yeah I’m fine, just got slammed into a few trees and DRAGGED ACROSS TOWN!”  Randy’s sarcasm laced comment made Howard flinch.

“Sorry Bro, just a little caught up in the moment”

Randy sighed “ I’m sorry too, just a bad fight”

The two sat there in a bit a silence before looking at each other

“Gamehole?”

“Gamehole”

* * *

 

Celestia stared at the black book that was sitting incontinently on the ground in front of her. Using her magic she picked up the book and looked at its cover, the green mask symbol surrounded by the red designs confirmed her suspicions. she never forgot the book and how it came to be.

“So this is where you’ve been all these years” She smiled like she just ran into an old friend. She turned the book and tried to open it, nothing. She sighed and rested her forehead against the book.

“What’d I do to see you again old friend” she whispered.  

“PRINCESS!” Celestia turned to see Twilight Sparkle and her friends galloping towards her.

“I heard what happened! Are you ok?” Twilight asked, her friends gathering around her.

“I’m fine Twilight. Some pony the residents called ‘Ninja’ saved me” Celestia answered calmly turning her focus away from the Nomicon. 

“Male? Pegasus? Black suit that covers all except his eyes with red markings? Sapphire eyes, tan coat, purple tail?” Rainbow Dash cut in.

“Uhh.. yes to all but the pegasus one, he was a earth pony” Celestia answered in a confused manner “Why do you ask?”

“Cause I meet a pegasus named Ninja back in Canterlot.” Rainbow Dash answered.

“Related?” Rarity suggested 

“Makes sense to me” Apple Jack answered.

Twilight turned away from her friends conversation and back the Celestia “you sure you’re all right.”

“Yes Twilight, I’m fine” Sighing Celestia back at the Nomicon.

* * *

 

“Hey Cunningham?”

“What?” 

“Not that I’m complaining but, Is it me or has the Nomicon been unusually quiet today?”

 “Yeah, You're right, maybe I should check…”

“No! That stupid book isn’t wonking up our fun for once! And we are going to enjoy it!”

“I was going to say check to see if it’s still in my bag but I guess it can wait”

“Uh-huh!”


	7. Lost and found part 2

**Lost and Found Part 2**

 

Celestia laid on the bed in her suite staring at the Nomicon. She was aware that she should return him to his rightful owner, but she just wanted to see him again. That and she had no idea how to find his owner. She tilted the book to look at his cover.

“Nomi? I know you’re in there. I know you know what’s going on. I just want to say, I’m sorry”

“Your majesty” 

Celestia groaned at the fake sing songy voice of the hotels owner. She would have avoided him if she could, but he owned pretty much everything in this town. 

“What do you want Hannibal?” She turned to see the pony in question standing in her doorway. He didn’t even knock.

“After what you just experienced you must be so traumatized” he crooned in fake care “So I had my robo-apes cook

You a special meal “

Celestia gave Mcfist a board look before putting Nomicon on her bedside table and ushering them in. Mcfist stayed in the doorway while his robots gave her her meal, his eyes fixated on the Nomicon.

“Uhhhhhhhhh…. Where did you get that?”

“Found it, I intend to give it back to h-”

“Ooooooorrrrrrr, you can give it to me and I will give it to its owner.” Mcfist interjected, one of his robo-apes reaching for the book. The Ninja’s secrets were so close to his grasp.

Celestia grabbed Nomicon and held the book close to her chest. She couldn’t really explain why she didn’t trust Mcfist, there was just something off about him.

“I can do it myself, I need to take a walk anyway. Thank you for offering Hannibal” She smiled one of her well practiced smiles, stood up and walked past Mcfist the Nomicon still close to her chest.

“Are you sure about that, your Majesty? It’s getting late.”

Celestia simply ignored him and left the building.

* * *

 

Randy groaned as he entered his room. He dropped his bag on the floor and flopped on to his bed. Both the fight and the hours of games played with Howard had caught up with him and he was exhausted. He glanced at his bag, Nomicon had been unusually quiet not even calling him when it was time for training.

“Shit!” Randy jumped out of bed and ran over to is bag 

“I’m so sorry Nomicon! I was playing games with Howard and I lost track of time!” He dug through his bag only to find the Nomicon missing.

“No no no no no no no” he grabbed his phone and called Howard.

“What do you want Cunningham? It’s like three in the morning.” Howard’s voice was groggy and sleep laden. 

Randy stole a glance at his clock,12:35. “Howard it’s only 12, and the Nomicon’s missing!”

“Well good riddance if you ask me” 

Randy huffed and hung up. Grabbing his mask out of his bag he headed over to his window. Once his mask was on he jumped out his window and summoned his wings, climbing into the sky. His flight was still wobbly but he managed to make it the school with any complications. Landing on the ground he galloped the rest of the way to where the fight had taken place, silently begging that he had just dropped it when he had hit a tree. After checking and double checking the area Randy groaned and took to the sky once again heading to where the fight had ended.

* * *

 

Randy found himself flying home with his hoofs devoid of the Nomicon. He had checked everywhere he could think of for the book only to find nothing. Sighing he watched the ground below him pass by. When he passed the park he spotted something white. Curiosity got the better of him and he went to investigate   

* * *

 

Celestia sat in the soft grass of the park stargazing, the Nomicon sitting next to her.  Glancing over she was yet again disappointed to see him inactive, she picked the book up and tried to open him once again. She didn’t know why she expected him to open. It had been thousands of years since the book had mysteriously disappeared from her room in the castle. It was clear he had chosen a new owner, and there was nothing she could do about it. The most she could do was return him to his owner, whoever that was. All that she had to go off was the mask symbol. When the Nomicon donned a soft red glow Celestia gasped and looked around her for any other pony, The only way she didn’t look was up. She yelped when a small Pegasus crash landed a little ways from her, he rolled and stopped with his fore legs splayed out in front of him, face in the ground, and his hind legs in the air.

Celestia carefully approached the pegasus and saw he matched the description Rainbow Dash gave for the pegasus named Ninja. He was small, smaller than the average pony but still bigger than a foal. He groaned and stood up, his back still to Celestia.

“Not my best landing, but getting better” He muttered to himself  retracting his wings.

Celestia gasped as she watched the Pegasus's wings turn into ribbons and disappear into his suit. Turning him into the very same ninja that saved her earlier that day. The Nomicon which was still in her magical grasp glowed a bright red and growled in an attempt to catch the Pony’s attention.

* * *

 

Randy groaned as he pulled himself off the ground. This wasn't his first crash landing, and he doubted it would be his last. 

“Not my best landing, but getting better” He muttered to himself  retracting his wings. He picked up on a sound that reminded him of a gasp and a unicorn's horn when it was using magic. What got him to turn around was an all too familiar red glow and growl

“NOMICON!” He whipped around to see a shocked and confused Princess Celestia holding Nomicon. The two stared at each other until Princess Celestia spoke up

“Ummm… I believe this belongs to you” She held out Nomi for Randy to take.  

Randy shook himself out of his stupor “yes!” he cleared his throat “Yes it is thank you for finding hi-it” he grinned through his mask and took the Nomicon from her.

Celestia took to walking around Randy examining him “ how did you make your wings disappear like that?”

“well , it’s all part of the suit. I can’t actually explain it, it’s just something I can do” Randy stumbled out the answer, watching Celestia. He couldn’t help but feel like he was being interrogated by her.

“How did you come to be in possession of Nomicon?”

Randy almost choked on nothing. “Okay one, how do you know his- errr it’s name? And two how are you aware I did not always have him?” 

Celestia had stopped walking around him and simply looked at him. Randy meet her gaze, he didn’t see any sign of hostility or anger. All he saw was sadness. He sighed remembering that Nomi told him about his friendship with Celestia.

“You miss him don’t you?”

Now it was Celestia’s turn to be be taken aback “How are you aware I once knew him?”

“He told me”

“How?”

“He never talked to you?”

Celestia simply shook her head

Randy thought for a bit before heading for a small collection of bushes that could hide them both becking Celestia to follow him. When she sat down with him in the bushes he set down Nomicon and opened him up allowing both of them to be sucked into the Nomicon.

* * *

 

Celestia screamed as various doodle creatures and symbols rushed past her a glance at the Ninja revealed that he wasn’t really phased by it. Before they hit the ground a cloud appeared and caught them. Ninja jumped right off.

Hey Nomi! You have a guest” he called out.

“I know Ninja”

Celestia turned to the all too familiar voice and simply stared at her old friend and he returned the stare.

“Hey Tia, long time no see”

Celestia didn’t say anything, she jumped of the cloud and ran over to Nomi pulling him into a hug.

“I missed you so much”

“Me too”

Celestia pulled away and looked into Nomicon’s eyes. “I’m so sor-

“ I know, and I forgive you” Nomicon interjected “You made a mistake, and I’ve had thousands of years to think about it. I forgive you.

Celestia pulled Nomi into another hug.

* * *

 

Randy Gasped as he was forced into the real world. A few minutes later Princess Celestia followed.

“I never knew he could do that. How come he showed you that but never me?”

Randy sighed and picked up The Nomicon “From what I understand he’s been in this book form for thousands of years. Over those years he slowly regained his strength. He’s been able to schloop ponies into the book for about eight hundred years”

Celestia simply nodded and stood up with Randy following her lead.

“May I walk you home, Your Highness?”

“ I guess you can, Ninja”

Randy took a few steps in a random direction before stopping and turning to the Princess 

“Uhhh… Where are you staying?

“The Mcsuite Hotel”

Randy groaned and mumbled under his breath.

“I’m not really fond of him too Ninja” Celestia sighed.

The two shared a quick laugh before leaving in the direction of the hotel.

“So where did you find Nomicon?”

“Under a tree on the high school's campus”

“I KNEW I DROPPED HIM THERE!”


	8. Research

**Research**

Twilight Sparkle Paced in front of the doors of her castle. Around her were various crystal pillars, Tapestries, and A staircase leading to the actual castle.

“Twilight darling, you must calm down” Rarity crooned from her place on the stairs with the others. They had been watching Twilight for the past 5 minutes.

“Calm down? Calm down!? Rarity I can’t ‘calm down’ Princess Celestia sent me a letter saying that she wanted to ask me a few questions and that she was on her way here. I mean what does she want to ask me? What if I don’t know the answer? WHAT IF IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT AND I DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER!?” Twilight would have ranted on for quite a while if it wasn't for Apple Jack 

“Rarity’s right sugarcube, you need to calm down. This isn’t your first rodeo when it comes to tests and the Princess”

“Yeah, you’re totally gonna nail it” Rainbow Dash stated “right guys?” 

The others simultaneously agreed making Twilight smile.

A fanfare could be heard from outside followed by two of the Princesses royal guards opening the doors. Princess Celestia strided in and gave Twilight a hug. Which Twilight returned.

“Princess, I’m so glad you're here. How was your travel?” Twilight asked after pulling away from the hug.

“It was just fine Twilight. Celestia answered in her usual caring tone “I’m sure you got my letter explaining why I’m here?”

“YES! Yes I did. I have the library all prepared follow me.

Twilight lead Princess Celestia to the castle's Library and they sat down at one of the tables.

“Can I get you anything to drink or eat?”

“Just some water, thank you”

“Spike, can you get Princess Celestia some water please?”

“Right away Twilight” Spike jogged out of the room and Twilight turned back to Celestia.

“So what did you want to ask me?”

“Do you think you can help me do some research?”

“Say what now?”

“My duties as Princess take up most of my day, and I don’t have much time to do this research for myself. Plus I know how much you love research.”

“Yes! I love research! What do you want me to look into?”

Celestia was about to answer when Spike walked in with her water.

“Here you go Your Highness” Spike chirped placing the cup on the table and leaving.

“Thank you Spike” Celestia called after him, then focused her attention back on Twilight. “I want you to Research the Ninja of Norrisville.

“Isn’t he the pony who saved you?”

“Yes he is. I saw him a second time after that incident and he performed some kind of spell I did not recognize”

“I thought he was a earth pony?”

“He was, that’s why I want to do some research on him”

“Okay, so what kind of spell was it?”

“Some kind of transfiguration or shapeshifting spell”

Twilight Started pulling various books off the shelfs “changeling?”

“No, He had wings that appeared to turn into ribbons and become part of his suit”

“Wait? Wings? So he looked exactly like that pegasus Rainbow Dash met in Canterlot?”

“Yes they were the same pony”

“But what was he doing in Canterlot?”

Celestia could only shrug and Twilight continued to look through her books.

* * *

 

A few months Twilight got on a train to the Canterlot Castle to meet Princess Celestia and 

“The only transfiguration or shapeshifting spells I can find are only performable by high level unicorns and alicorns. So how did he do it? She wondered out loud, still looking through her books. 

“ I’m still trying to get over the fact that the pegasus I meet was also an earth pony” Rainbow Dash said, pushing Twilight’s book down.  

“And A Hero” Rarity swooned, then she quickly snapped into a serious mood “But, he REALLY needs to update his outfit.”  She looked around at the others as they stared at here with varying degrees of confusion and amusement.

 “What? 800 years in the Exact Same outfit. He Really needs to update” 

“Rarity, why don’t we talk about his outfit after we figure out the shapeshifting thing” AppleJack interjected. Rarity gave her an offended look 

“Umm… Twilight? Are you sure he’s not a changeling?” Fluttershy squeaked” as Rarity and AppleJack started a small argument.

“Yes FlutterShy” Twilight sighed. “Changeling’s have a distinguent transformation, Celestia’s description of the Ninja’s does not match. She said his wings turned into ribbons and became one with his suit.” She closed her book and grabbed another “Which is another thing I have not been able to find anywhere” She slammed her book shut with a huff. 

“I may not know a lot about magic but spells have to be created, so what if he made the spells himself” Rainbow Dash suggested peeking at the third book Twilight grabbed.

“That’s possible, But once again he would need to be a unicorn or alicorn”

The five barley reacted when Pinkie Pie popped up between Rainbow Dash and Twilight despite being on the opposite side of the both a second earlier. 

“What if he wasn’t the one to cast the spell. Instead somepony cast it on an item that he wears, like his scarf or his mask”

Twilight shook her head “That is a possibility I already looked into. All the spells I found were close, but all of them would require a high level alicorn to cast it”

“So?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“The Ninja is 800 years old, the only alicorn around at that time was Princess Celestia.” Twilight explained “Why would she ask me to look up a spell she cast? And if she did she would have written it down, so why can’t I find it?

“What if the Ninja is an alicorn?” Rarity wondered out loud

Twilight stared at Rarity with a ‘why didn’t I think of that’ look on her face.

“I mean all the spells that would allow him to pull off the wing trick are all high level alicorn stuff” Rarity explained “And if he can make his wing disappear and reappear who says he can’t do it with a horn?” 

“Rarity…..You…..Are…..A GENIUS!

* * *

 

“So that’s what my friends and I were able to come up with” Twilight finished presenting all here research to Princess Celestia, even the dead ends.

Celestia looked over the organized chaos of papers, book, pictures, and some videos and smiled. “Great job Twilight, This is way more than I expected for answers”

Twilight beamed with pride 

“Ummm excuse me… Your Highness?”  both looked to see a unicorn peeking in through the door, a clipboard in her magical grasp. “You're going to be late for your meeting with the Sultan of Saddle Arabia”

Celestia sighed and shook her head “I’ll be right there Silver Scholar” 

The unicorn in question nodded and left the room.

“Well it looks like duty calls Twilight” Celestia sighed as she stood up “Thank you again for helping me with this research”

“It was no problem Princess” Twilight responded “you know how much I love research”

Celestia started making her way towards the door before pausing. She pulled a card out of the desk that was near her and handed it to Twilight.

“What’s this?” Twilight asked examining the card.

“A pass for the restricted part of the library” Celestia responded “I think you earned it”

Twilight gasped and failed to hold back her excitement “THANK YOU SO MUCH PRINCESS” She hugged Celestia, which she returned.

“Your welcome” Celestia chuckled “Just remember, the books were restricted for a reason”

“I will, thank you again bye!” Twilight rushed her goodbye and her exit in her excitement to get to the library. 

Celestia simply laughed at her students antics and left for her meeting.    


	9. Restricted

**Restricted**

Twilight Sparkle could barely contain her excitement. She was in the restricted section of the Canterlot Library, a place filled to the ceiling with various books that were deemed dangerous or too secret for just any pony to see. The ones that were extremely dangerous were barred shut with a magical lock that only Princess Celestia could unlock. Letting out an excited giggle she started looking through the various books.

* * *

 

Hours later Twilight had  large piles of books next to her. And she had already read about ghost and the theory that they had their own dimension, a ghost zone you could call it, A type of dragon that was a pony as well and could change forms freely, something called a miraculous, and living gemstones that could use light to project themselves a physical from. Closing her latest book she moved to pick up the next one in her pile. The book looked simple enough, a leather cover with a gold and bright green design it. Opening the book Twilight saw page after page of scribbled dates and notes.

“A journal?” She asked to nopony in particular “ What’s this doing in the restricted section?”  

See that the only way to answer her question was to read the journal.   

* * *

 

1210 年03月14日

I found some strange artifact in the woods today. It’s a belt made of several large, green pearls that seem to be glowing. I have no idea who it belongs to but I keep getting a strange feeling whenever I’m near them. I decided to start this journal to document my time with this strange artifact.

What kind of Sorcerer would I be if I didn’t make sure this thing was safe.  

* * *

 

1210 年05月04日

I've spent the past few months looking through all my books and scrolls trying to find a mention of this artifact. So far I have found nothing, so I will have to start with basic experiments. I will try to find what magic is used for it’s base first.

* * *

1210 年04月07日

 Strange things have been happening right after I tried to see what type of magic is used as the base for the artifact. It seems like a small possession,headaches, blackouts, sudden mood swings, and the feeling that something else is there, and it does not mean well. 

I’m gonna have to go into town and get the materials for a few anti-spirit spells. I’ll will leave the ingredients and instructions in their corresponding entries

* * *

 

Twilight turned the page to see that the other entries were scribbled over so that they couldn't be read. She flipped through page after page of scribbled out entries, some even had claw marks. Only the last two entries were spared.

* * *

 

1211 年08月20日

Something is wrong with me, I can’t explain why but I know something is wrong. I actually enjoyed some pony’s  pain and suffering today, I even tried to worsen it. I wasn’t aware of it at first , buy the time I was aware of it I had made everything worse. I don’t know what’s going on, I have no idea what’s happening to me.

* * *

 

1211 年09月27日

SwEeT, sWEet ChaOs. I’M GOnNA SPreAd iT LiKE RAin CoMe to Me my MiNionS. LeT YoUR PAIn, LOneLiNEsS, And HaTreD ConSUMe YoU anD MakE YoU STronGER. LeT CHaoS REigN, NO OnE wILL StOp ME!

FoR I aM THe SoRcERer  

* * *

 

Twilight closed the journal feeling a little shaky, Gathering the books she placed them back on their respective shelves. In a daze she left the library and wondered to a park near by, sitting on one of the benches she stared at the sunset.

“There you are Twi, we’ve been looking for you 

Twilight snapped out of her daze to see her friends surrounding her.

“Are you alright darling?”

“Yes Rarity I’m fine, just tired”

“Well then, I guess you Aren't up for some dinner with your friends than?”

Twilight Simply nodded and walked off with her friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter is completely headcannon for how the sorcerer came to be in the Equestrian universe.   
> yay


	10. Summer Sun Celebration

**Summer Sun Celebration**

Randy trotted through the crowd of ponies trying to get back to his house, carrying a bag of snacks and drinks with him. It was Norrisville’s turn to host the Summer Sun Celebration and Danny, Jake and Danny’s and Jake’s friends were over to celebrate. He had left Nomicon back at home to let them in if they came early and by the looks of things, he was late to his own party. After many more minutes he finally made it home, just in in time to see Danny phase through his door. He was able to make out the three ponies that were with him. A lilac Pegasus with amethyst eyes and a black mane with purple highlights. Her mane was in a half ponytail and her tail was so long it dragged on the ground. Next to her was a coffee brown unicorn with teal eyes, A red beret covered his short, black mane with a tail to match. And a mocha brown pegasus with dark green eyes Her dark,curly mane was held out of her face with a orange headband.  Her tail was tied up with a orange ribbon that held it up higher so it stopped just before the ground.

“You didn’t have to break in, Nomi was home” Randy shouted playfully as Danny opened the door to let the others in.

“Well this Nomi is really bad at answering doors” The mocha pegasus shouted back “We’ve been waiting for five minutes”

“Did you knock or use the doorbell?” Randy asked as he finished closing the distance between them.

“We used the Bell,why?” The Lilac one asked.

“The bell is broken” Randy answered “I left a note to let you know”

“The wind must have took it” Danny stated 

“Yeah, I’ll make a new one” Randy responded “Who are your friends?”

“OH!” Danny face-hoofed  “This is Sam, Tucker, and Valerie” He pointed to the respective pony as he said their name.

“Nice to meet you guys, I’m Randy” Randy greeted “Why don’t we head inside, I have video games set up in the living room”

Randy waited till everyone was inside before going inside himself Going straight to the kitchen to put the drinks in the fridge and grab some bowls and plates for the snacks. 

“You’re out of snacks” Was the first thing Howard said when he entered the room .

“Hello to you to Howard” Randy quipped setting up the snacks. Howard grabbed an entire bag of chips for himself causing Randy to simply roll his eyes and pull another from the bag. After he was done he took a quick look around the room. Howard and Tucker had already started a round of Grave Puncher, Danny and Valerie were putting some snacks that they had brought on the table, And Sam was not so subtly gawking at Nomicon who was lounging on the couch, the light from the game bouncing of his scales and fur.

Guys, This is Howard and Nomicon, Nomi for short. Nomi, Howard this is Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Valerie”

If you don’t mind me asking, what are you?” Sam asked.

“I don’t mind at all” Nomi chuckled “I’m a kirin”

“Your coat, and scales are beautiful” Sam complemented jumping onto the couch next to Nomi.

“Thank you?” Nomi was put off by the compliment.

“Trust the goth to like the black coat” Tucker Snickered, stopping when Sam glared at him.

“It’s not just because it’s black, It’s so glossy. I may not be big on beauty standards but I’ve never been able to get my coat this glossy.” 

“Sam’s right” Valerie joined in “I don’t think even Paulina has gotten her coat this glossy, And she’s been bragging about the hours and the amount of products she puts into it”  

“products actually strip the coat of essential oils that are the reason for gloss” Nomi said looking much more comfortable.

“Yeah, you girls enjoy your beauty talk.” Howard said in a taunting manner “us guys are gonna play some video games”

Nomi pretended to be offended by the comment.

* * *

 

After an hour or so Jake and his friends arrived 

Trixie, A dark mocha unicorn with  bright, brown eyes. Her hair curly black hair that had periwinkle highlights. Her mane was tied up into two puffy ponytails while her short tail hung freely. 

Spud, A earth pony with a bright blue coat and soft blue eyes to match. A dark green beanie covered his messy, brown mane and his tail was kept short but was just as messy.

Rose, A rose pink Unicorn with baby blue eyes. Her mane was blonde with lighter blonde and pink streaks and stopped just below her shoulders with a tail to match.

And Fu Dog, a  Shar Pei  who was grey with a lighter gray muzzle.

“Sorry we’re late, had a Diamond Dog problem to take care of”Jake said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“It’s cool” Randy responded “ we’ve just been playing games, still got 20 hours till the sunrise ceremony”

The group spent the next 20 hours playing games and watching horror movies that Sam had brought. After a while Nomicon and Fu Dog split off from the group after hitting it off right away. When the time came the group left For the ceremony, Fu Dog had to act like a normal dog while Nomi didn’t bother. He had been helping Randy out when he was the Ninja, so the ponies of Norrisville had become quite used to him being around. They managed to get a place in the front row. Celestia and Luna were already in their places on the stand, waving to all the ponies. Celestia made eye contact with Nomi and waved a little more enthusiastically, Nomi bowed his head in return. Lune picked up on her sister's change in attitude and followed her line of sight, upon seeing Nomi she started to jump off the stand, only to have Celestia stamp on her tail and whisper something in her ear. Luna composed herself and waved to Nomi a little to enthusiastically. Nomi laughed and waved back.

* * *

 

“You guys go ahead” Nomi called to Randy “I want to talk to some old friends”

Randy waved and started to lead the group back to his house. Nomi turn to where he saw the Princess leave and started to head that way.

“Nomicon?”

Nomi turn toward the voice only to have a camera shoved in his face. Behind the camera was Heidi. 

“What’s up Norrisville High?” She greeted the camera “Today I got A special interview with Nomicon! The Ninjas new helper” 

Nomi rolled his eyes and walked away.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Hedie called after him “At least let me finish the interview”

Nomi saw Celestia and Luna Leaving with some royal guards and Mcfist, who was leading the way with Viceroy not far behind him.

“I do apologize Heidi, but I’m on my way to meet some friends” He called back.

Heidi caught up with Nomi “It’s okay, I can walk and ask questions at the same time” She was not giving up.

Nomi gave the white unicorn a irritated look Trying to come up with a way to get rid of her.

“NOMI!”

Nomi felt the air being forced out of him when a dark blue alicorn slammed into him, delivering a tight hug.

“HOW HATH THOU BEEN? IT’S BEEN YEARS!”

* * *

 

Heidi stared at the princess as she hugged the life from Nomicon. ‘Where did she come from’ was the first thing that came to her mind. Looking around she settled on Princess Celestia, who was trotting over herself. A little ways behind her was a small group of royal guards who were strangely enough not following her, some had even sat down. Next to them was a irritated Mcfist and a amused Viceroy.

“Luna? ….Need air” Nomi gasped.  

Luna let Nomi go “I haven’t seen you in years” She took a breath to compose herself “You won't believe how hard it was to stay up on that stage and NOT jump down and hug you right then” 

“Wait” Heidi cut in “You guys know each other?”

“Yes we do” Celestia chuckled “Nomicon is an old fillyhood friend of ours”

"YES, a VERY old friend of ours" Luna added “Now if you excuse us we have catching up to do” Luna said proceeding to drag Nomi away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this world Valerie Knows, enough said.   
> Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks Heidi would pester The Ninja (Randy) or Nomicon and even put herself in danger for the sake of getting something for her show.


	11. Royal Suite

**Royal Suite**

Nomi Looked around the Royal suite that Luna and Celestia had brought him to. I was huge with a space full of plush couches and A large TV. The living area lead to four separate rooms, One for each princess, A room for the royal guards, and the last was for other personal the princess had brought with them. All of them had walk in closets and separate bathrooms.  

“Nice place” Nomi said turning to the princesses. 

“Yeah” Luna agreed “Mcfist may be a jerk but he knows how to make a decent suite” 

“Luna!” Celestia hissed 

“What?” Luna asked “ You can’t say you don’t agree, you don’t really like him either”

“You’re right” Celestia agreed “ I don’t like him, But I wouldn't call him a jerk”

Luna flopped onto one of the many couches becking Nomi to do the same. “Come,We have a lot to catch up on”

Nomi laid down on one of the couches, staring at the ceiling. He let a nostalgic smile appear on his face  “You guys remember when we first met?”

* * *

 

“WHAT ARE THEY DOING?!”

Viceroy flinched as his boss burst into the room. Turning around he gave Mcfist a mild glare.

“At the moment, talking about their childhood” he replied before turning back to the plans for his latest robot. When the princesses had brought back the Ninja’s ally Mcfist nearly blew his lid. Viceroy came up with the idea of watching the live security camera footage to see if they could learn anything, and of course Mcfist claimed it was his idea. So began the process.

“They’re talking about THEIR CHILDHOOD?!” Mcfist yelled “WE HAVE THE NINJA’S ALLY IN OUR BUILDING AND THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT THEIR CHILDHOOD!”

Viceroy used his wings to plug his ears. “Yes they are, it’s not like they know we are listing” he poured his sarcasm in to his answer. 

Mcfist grumbled “Fine, call me when it gets interesting” with that he marched out of the room.

Viceroy sighed and back to the screens, going off the rate they were going this was going to be a long day.

* * *

 

Nomi and the princesses had been talking for what seemed like hours. They were on the subject of their early adult years. 

“Remember when we decided to try out that spell that would allow a pony to….take…..a” Celestia’s sentence slowly faded to a stop. She cast a sad glance at Nomicon. Nomi looked unaffected by the unfinished sentence.

“Nomi, I’m so sorry” she sighed “I didn’t expect everything to go wrong that day. It was me who-”

Nomi stopped Celestia by placing his hoof over her mouth

“Tia, that was 15,000 years ago” He smiled “And I forgave you 15,000 years ago”

The moment was ruined by Luna face hoofing 

“I actually forgot about the book thing” She groaned “ So you’re back, does that mean that the spell wore off?”

Nomi shook his head “sadly, no” He sighed “I’ve been building up my magic for years. Being able to return to this form takes energy and I can’t sustain it forever. The spell is permanent” 

“Until a counter spell is made” Celestia cut Nomi off “ I can get my student to look into it. She is great with this kind off stuff”

“You have a student?” Nomi raised a brow 

“Yes, yes I do, her name is Twilight”

Nomi laughed to himself “I have one as well, the ponies here call him Ninja. Been my job for 800 years now”

“Well that explains why he had you in his possession” Celestia said.

“Am I the only one without a student” Luna asked feeling a little left out.

The three shared a laugh.

Nomi was the first to stop, the hours off staying in his form were catching up with him.  

“Nomi” Luna asked “are you alright” 

“Yeah” Nomi said “Running out of time to be in this form. I need to get back to my student”

“I’ll walk you” Luna jumped off her couch. Looking at Nomi’s tired form with worry.

Celestia stood as well, picking up her shoes, chest piece, and crown from the floor and putting them on 

Nomi grabbed some paper and a quill and quickly scribbled down a note for Randy to Meet him in the park as the ninja and sent it “My student will meet us in the park”

Luna grabbed her chest piece, crown and shoes as well “Let’s go”

* * *

 

The smile on Mcfist’s face was impossibly large. He watched as the Ninja’s teacher changed back into the book he was all too familiar with. The youngest of the Princesses picked him up and placed him in a bag that was near the door.

Viceroy felt a little sick to the stomach. It was obvious that the conversation was private and he had heard more than he wanted, especially how the Nomicon had become the Nomicon.

“GET A ROBOT OUT TO THE PARK!” Micfist screeched “I NEED TO CALL THE SORCERER” and with that he marched out of the room. 

Viceroy looked at his half finished robot and sighed. Activating the robot, he marked a win for the ninja in his mind. A normal everyday pony could destroy this thing.

* * *

 

Randy yawned, He was just about to go to bed when Nomi asked him to pick him up in the park and he had now officially not slept in two days. Keeping in the shadows to avoid attention he made his way to the park. After reaching the park he laid down under a tree, deciding that a quick nap wouldn’t hurt.

“Look out!”

Randy groaned as a frisbee hit his head.

“Sorry, my friend over...shot” 

Randy looked up to see a very familiar pegasus

“Oh, hey Theresa.”

“I’m SO sorry Ninja” Theresa looked slightly panicked, realizing she hit the city’s hero with a frisbee

“It’s okay”Randy laughed, giving the plastic disk back to her.    

“What are you doing here?” Theresa asked.

Randy playfully raised an eyebrow “what do you mean? Am I not allowed to be out and about too?” 

Theresa Blushed “oh no no no, that’s not what I meant” She stammered out “ It’s just you usually only show up when there's a monster or robot to fight and we don’t see you out and about like this” She hid her face in her hoofs out of embarrassment.

Randy laughed “I’m messing with you. I know it’s not normal for me to be out like this” 

“So... what are you doing here?” 

“Meeting up with someone, then hopefully, a nap”

“Tired?” 

“Tired doesn't cut it” Randy yawned.

“Theresa! What’s taking you so long?” 

“Coming!”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later” 

“More like save me later” 

Randy laughed as Theresa flew back to her friend. Curling up, he rested his head on his fore legs and closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure how long he was asleep, but he was woken up by someone poking him.

“Ninja?” 

“Hmmm?” Randy looked up to see the Princesses, Luna holding a paper bag. Randy shook the last of his sleepiness away and stood, bowing to them. 

“There is no need for such formalities, Ninja” Celestia chuckled 

“Yes, we are just here to drop off Nomi” Luna pulled Nomi out of the bag and handed him to Randy “Thank you for letting us see him again, you won't believe how much I missed him”

“Don’t thank me” Randy said “ He’s my teacher, he doesn't need my permission to do stuff”

“That is true” Celestia chuckled and looked to the sky “We should be going, We don’t want the guards to notice we’re gone”

“Agreed sister” Luna stated “Tell Nomi to write when he can”

Randy looked down at Nomi “You heard that Nomicon? They want you to write”

Nomi answered with a bright flash.

“He heard you”

“Well then, bye Nomi, bye Ninja” Celestia smiled as she turn around and started to leave.

“Bye Nomi, bye Ninja” Luna quickly turned and caught up with her sister. 

Randy tucked Nomicon into his sash and started to head home when a loud thud and the sound of screams caught his attention. Galloping over to the commotion he saw a robot that looked like a large diamond dog, except it wasn’t even finished. Missing panels exposed the wires and it only had one eye. The diamond bot took two steps before falling over. Randy sighed and shook his head, a quick look around revealed a small crowd of ponies, including Theresa,Debbie Kang and a familiar looking group of six ponies.

“I honestly feel kind of bad for this guy” Randy said in a joking manner “He just lost a fight with the ground”  

The crowd responded with a mix of laughs and groans. 

Rand proceeded to walk up to the robot and pull out it’s wires, shutting it down. With that done decided he deserved a nice, long nap in the comfort of his own bed. 


	12. Video Games and Talk

**Video Games and Talk**

Randy sat in a beanbag chair playing video games,Danny, Tucker, and Sam on voice chat. And Howard sitting to his right, with Nomicon behind him on his bed reading a book. Howard kept sending irritated glances back at Nomi.

“What’s the book doing out of his book?” 

Randy shot a glare at Howard as Nomi answered the question

“Being in this form takes energy, so I am working on being able to spend more time in it.You could say it’s exercise for magic.”He looked up from his book and towards the chubby unicorn “though I seriously doubt you even know what exercise is”

Howard only glared at Nomi’s cool expression as the others laughed, some ‘savage’ and want something for that burn’ comments were made as well. 

“Cunningham, make your book shut up” He snapped 

Randy caught his breath only to bust into another fit of laughter

Danny was the first to officially stop laughing “Why do you hate Nomi so much? He seems pretty cool to me” 

Howard huffed and stood up “ I’m gonna get some food” and with that he stormed out of the room.

Randy stood to follow him, but stopped when Nomi jumped off the bed and crossed the room in one fluid movement.

“I’ll talk to him”

* * *

 

Howard angrily chewed on the cookie he had shoved in his mouth ‘that stupid book is stealing my friend’ he fumed. Randy had yet to follow him downstairs and apologize, the book was probably keeping him up there. He glared down at the plate of cookies that sat at the table, perking up when someone sat next to him only to be upset when bright green magic picked a cookie from the plate. 

Nomi stared at the baked good for a bit before taking a tentative bite, his face scrunched up as he chewed. 

“I can’t say I like this cookie” he pondered out loud “What kind was this again?”

“Chocolate Chip” Howard mumbled as he shoved another in his mouth.

“Huh” Nomi huffed, “what other kinds are there again?” 

“What do you want!?” Howard snapped, facing Nomi with a look of agitation.

Nomi looked at him with an emotionless stare “Peace, between us” 

Howard glared at the Kirin “ Never going to happen book” he grabbed the plate of cookies and started to leave the kitchen, only the have Nomi stand up and block his way. Howard looked up at Nomi feeling a bit of his anger being replaced with nervousness. Nomi was as tall as the alicorn princesses, while he was just barely taller than a foal. 

“Why do you hate me?” Nomi asked in a clam manner “what did I do to deserve your hate?”

What did you do?!” Howard half yelled “What did you do!? You stole my friend that's what you did!”

Nomi looked taken aback by the acquisition “How did I steal him?” He asked “You are hanging out with him right now” 

“He’s barely around anymore” Howard growled “And whenever we are about to do something bruce, you call him away for a lesson or training”

Nomi looked down at the small unicorn “My response to that will be the exact same thing Randy has told you every time” He looked Howard in the eye “ Randy has a responsibility as the Ninja, and with that responsibility means less time for friends and family. Be happy he’s making time for you” 

“What about his new friends” Howard queried “Danny, Tucker, Sam, and everyone else. When he’s with them he spends less time with me, and he meet them as the Ninja so if you hadn’t chose him he would not have meet them”  Nomi looked at Howard with a look of disappointment and disbelief “They live on the other side of Equestria” He said “the only way they talk is video or voice chat. You’re telling me that you want to be his one and only friend”

Howard huffed and looked at Nomi with annoyance. “Yeah, just like how we were before all of this”

Nomi straightened himself and stood as tall as he was “Those who are most possessive, often lose the most” and with that said Nomi turned around and went back upstairs.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!”  Howard shouted after him.


	13. Blank Flank Part 1

**Blank Flank Part 1**

 

Randy panted heavily as he faced of with Mcfists latest robot, it looked like a panther only bigger, and the stupid thing just would not stay down and let Randy win. Randy could feel his legs shaking as he took a few running steps towards the robot, grabbing two random balls from his sash he threw them praying to Celestia they weren't bee balls.

He was in luck, one explode into a block of ice freezing the robot in place and the other sent jolts of electricity through it. When the electricity was over the robot swayed, a few of its circuits fried, but not enough to stop it. In anger the robot forgot it’s feet were frozen and ended up on it’s face.

Randy drew his sword and approached the fallen robot only to jump back when it managed to break the ice and stand up.

“Would you just honking die already!” Randy shouted at it only to be answered by a roar and the robot charging. Randy prepared for contact only to have the robot rush past him.

“Huh?” 

The robot swiped at the crowd watching the battle and managed to grab two ponies with its large paw then jumped onto the roof of the school in one leap.

Randy groaned as he heard Theresa and Debbie scream and ran towards the school, not trusting his legs to carry him up the school he jumped into the air and activated his art of flying, letting his wings carry him.  Casting a look down he saw Nomicon appearing from the shadows and climbing the school to join him. When he reached to roof the robot swiped at him.

Randy moved to dodge but still felt one of the claws make contact with his flank. Randy hissed and moved to hold his injured leg but stopped himself, he flew to the paw holding The girls and tried to pry it open.

Nomicon had finally gotten to the roof and delivered a well placed kick to the robot’s muzzle, quickly following with another.

The kicks were enough to get the robot to drop Theresa and Debbie, the two screamed as they fell. Theresa tried to carry her and her friend but one of her wings weren't responding. 

Randy dove down barely aware of the robot's claw catching the rip in his suit where he had been hit in the flank and tearing it more.  He caught up with the falling mares and wrapped is forelegs around Theresa’s torso,Theresa was already holding onto Debbie so both mares came to a stop, Randy lowered them to the ground and flew back up to the roof to finish the battle.

“LET’S END THIS!” He shouted “NINJA TENGU FIREBALL!” Randy closed his eyes as he felt the familiar feeling of warmth seeping into and through his body, gathering the most at the tip of his wings and his fore hooves. Bringing his wings and fore hooves together he launched a large fireball at the robot. 

The robot panther turned it’s attention from Nomion just in time to be hit in the face with the flaming projectile, it stumbled and fell off the roof.

Randy sighed a sigh of relief when he heard the hum of it shutting down. Landing on the ground, he hissed when the feeling of pain returned to his injured leg.

“Are you alright?”

Randy looked up to his teacher “yeah, just a scratch” he smiled forcing himself not to wince when he put his injured leg on the ground, best not to worry the town and make things worse. 

“Then I guess we can say hello to some special watchers” Nomicon said.

Confused Randy looked around, his eyes settling on The princess Luna and Celestia, besides their guards next to them was Princess Twilight and Mcfist, who was trying to hold back his anger. 

“I don’t see why not” he smiled and started to walk in their direction.

The crowd in front of the princesses split in half for the Ninja and Nomicon, the ones on the side of Randy’s injury gasped and started to whisper, some even took pictures.

Being to tired and in pain to care, Randy didn’t pay attention to what was being whispered. When he reached the princesses his mind was foggy, but he bowed.

“Your majesties”  he said aware of Nomicon doing the same thing next to him.

He was surprised when Celestia and Luna bowed as well, Princess Twilight looked just as surprised but followed their lead. 

“Once you done taking care of your injury meet us at our suite, we’ll leave a window open” Celestia whispered, winking she straightened and walked away the others following her.

Mcfist shot Randy and Nomicon a glare before following Celestia.

Randy grabbed a smoke bomb from his sash and slammed it against the ground the smoke surrounded him and Nomicon, they both appeared on the roof of the school where howard was already waiting for him with a first aid kit. Finally taking weight off his leg he limped over to Howard and flopped down, Howard practically jumped on him and started to clean the wound. Randy finally took the time to look at is wound, it was on his upper flank and deeper than he thought it was, and bleeding more than he expected. His suit was ripped in a way that most of flank was exposed and even through the blood Randy’s blank flank was visible. 

Exhaustion catching up with him Randy laid his head on his forelegs and closed his eyes.

_ the ponies on the side of his injury gasped and started to whisper, some even took pictures, but none of them looked concerned instead they look shocked and surprised almost like they had seen- _

“BUCK!” Randy shot up startling Howard, the flash of red told him he startled Nomicon too, who had shifted back into his book form sometime while his eyes were closed.

“What the juice is wrong with you?!” Howard half shouted 

“Howard I just walked through a crowd that consisted of our entire school with my flank exposed, they know I’m a blank flank now!” Randy panicked “And Debbie already made the observation that The Ninja and I share the same Eye, coat, and mane color!” 

“Shit” 

“Yeah!” Randy half shouted “I need to talk to Nomicon” he pulled the book closer to him and opened it.

Randy fell into a recreation of a old Japanese village, standing up he walked through it looking at the ponies the inhabited it. After a few minutes Randy noticed a pattern in the ponies, most of them were blank flanks and those who did have cutie marks were given judgmental looks but otherwise ignored. Randy found nomicon sitting in the center of town reading a book.

“Bookception” Randy snickered to himself and move to sit next to Nomicon. 

“You have quite a few worries about this whole incident” Nomicon said looking up from his book “where do you want me to start?”

“With the risk of my identity being revealed” Randy said “and that interview with Heidi is in two days and you can bet she’s going to ask about this, so maybe something I can tell her that seems legit”

Nomicon simply nodded and stood up “follow me young ninja”

* * *

 

“Are you sure about this?” Heidi asked looking up from the Tablet in front of her.

Debbie Kang nodded “he has the same eye,coat and mane color as the ninja and now we know they are both blank flanks” 

Heidi looked at the tablet once more, on the screen was a pile of evidence pointing towards Randy Cunningham being the Ninja “We’ll wait till the interview I have scheduled with him, I’ll ask him about it then”

“So he can lie to you?” 

“Look, the only things that can debunk this are Randy and The Ninja being in the same place at the same time or if Randy doesn't have a injury on his left hind leg” Heidi explained “let’s wait and see if he does”

* * *

 

“Why didn’t you just do that right away?!”

“I was too tired” 

“How much energy does art of healing take?!”

“I don’t know the exact amount, but a lot” Randy stretched his newly healed leg and stood, the leg still stung a bit but the cut and most of the limp was gone. He removed his mask and put it right back on, fixing the rip in the suit. A flash of red could be seen in the corner of his eye.

“Yeah I know Nomicon, be right there” he said “The Princess of Equestria requested my presence so I better not keep her waiting, Grave Punchers marathon when I get back?”  

“You bet Cunningham”

Randy grabbed Nomicon and stored him in his sash, he jumped off the roof his wings appearing and carrying him to the Princesses suite.

* * *

 

Princess Twilight Sparkle sat in the royal suite with her friends.

AppleJack and Rarity were talking to their respective younger sisters AppleBloom and Sweetie Belle. Including their friend Scootaloo they had begged to come to NorrisVille to meet the Ninja, and now that it was revealed the Ninja of Norrisville was a blank flank, the Cutie Mark Crusaders wanted to meet him more than ever. 

The rest of her friends were sitting or laying around talking to pass the time. 

Everypony in the room stopped talking when the Ninja flew in through the open glass door that lead to the balcony . 

The Cutie Mark Crusaders squealed and started to run forward, only to be stopped by their sisters and Rainbow Dash, who took responsibility for Scootaloo.

“Let’s see what the princesses want with him” Rarity said “then you can meet him” 

“Oh, I’m pretty sure the princesses want my teacher and not me” The Ninja said pulling a book out of his sash and placing it on the ground.

The book opened in a ray of light and a familiar looking Kirin jumped out, replacing the book.    

“Twilight, isn't that the kirin we saw on the train a while back?” Rarity whispered.

Twilight nodded, comparing the Ninja with the pony she saw with the kirin, they were identical. Looking back at her friends she could tell they had made the same connection, they all agreed to keep it to themselves without a single word spoken, the Ninja wore the mask for a reason.   

Twilight watched as Celestia and Luna hugged the Kirin, clearly happy to see him.

“So I guess I’m just dropping him off, Nomicon knows how to contact me when he’s ready to leave” The Ninja said in a bored tone, like this was something he was used to.

“Actually” Celestia chuckled “I wanted you to meet my student, Twilight” Celestia nodded in Twilight’s direction making the Ninja look at her “As you can see she brought a couple of her friends”

The kirin known as Nomicon sat down with the princesses as Ninja trotted across the large room to Twilight and the others. He looked at AppleJack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash, still holding the Cutie Mark Crusaders. 

“You can let them go now” He said sitting down “Any longer and I think they'll explode”

The ninja grunted as the three fillies hugged him, all three of them started introducing themselves and expressing their excitement to meet him all at once. 

Twilight watched as the Ninja seemed to take in all of it fairly well, constantly shifting his gaze between the three fillies. After a few minutes the Cutie Mark Crusaders stopped talking and looked up at the Ninja ready for him to answer their questions. 

“Okay, one please let go I’m still a little bruised from the fight, and two you’re going to have to repeat some of that” The Ninja said gently pushing them off him .

The girls let go of him and sat down in front of him.

The Ninja looked at their crusader capes and laughed “like you capes” he said “you want to be a superhero when you grow up?”  

The girls laughed as well as Apple Bloom spoke up “No, we’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders, A club where we work together to find out who we are, and what we're supposed to be by finding our Cutie Marks”  

“Neat” Ninja said nodding his head.

Sweetie Bell ran over to Rarity’s saddlebag and pulled out a extra Cutie Mark Crusaders cape.

“Do you want to join us?” Apple Bloom asked presenting the cape to him “News all over town is say you’re a blank flank as well” 

“Apple Bloom!”

“What?”

“The Ninja laughed taking the offered clothing article “It’s okay, I’m not surprised that this little tidbit of news traveled fast” He examined the cape before trying to put it on, it was a little small for him but so tucked the ends into his scarf instead of tying it.

The girls beamed at the sight of him wearing the cape.

“I’ll have to think about your offer” The Ninja said “ Just please don’t be upset if I say no, protecting Norrisville and training leaves with me with very little time for a social life”

The girls nodded only to groan when AppleJack and Rarity started to round them up.

“It’s the adults turn to talk to the Ninja” Rarity crooned, gently pushing Sweetie Bell to their room.

“Why can’t we stay for it” Apple Bloom asked as she to was pushed to her room.

“Cause the adults said so”

“AWWWWWWh” the three fillies said at once.

The Ninja chuckled “How long are you guys in NorrisVille?”

“Till Friday” Twilight answered “Why?” 

“Cause school is canceled tomorrow due to damage” Ninja explained “which means besides training with Nomicon I have the day open. So if you guys let us adults talk in private I can take you to Whoopie World”

“But Rarity and the others already agreed to take us there tomorrow” Sweetie Bell said.

“Then I’ll accompany you to Whoopie World” The Ninja said.

“DEAL!” the girls shouted and ran to their room. 

“Well” Rarity said “That’s one way to get them to listen. 

Twilight and the others settled down.

“I sure hope you remember me Ninja Heart” Rainbow Dash quipped 

“I sure do Rainbow Dash” Ninja answered “Now I know Princess Twilight Sparkle, but who are the rest of you?”

“These are my friends AppleJack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie” Rainbow Dash pointed to the appropriate pony as she  introduced them “I intended to introduce you to them when we first meet but you disappeared when we got to the party”

“Yeah sorry about that” Ninja rubbed his foreleg “I saw the news ponies and got nervous, I wanted my little break to stay on the down low”

* * *

 

They spent the next two hours talking to the Ninja, asking him how his wings work and about his Rage mode with both getting similar answers 

“It’s the suit that allows me to do it” 

They learned he could be quite defensive of his suit when Rarity started to pick at his suit and give him fashion advice.

“Hey! The scarf it a very valuable and useful Ninja tool” 

Especially the scarf.

By the time their conversation was wrapping up it was starting to get dark out. The Ninja stood and stretched.

“Well I better be getting home” he said He walked over to where Nomicon was and saw his teacher’s exhausted face. “Did he take any breaks?” He asked with concern in his voice.

Princess Celestia shook her head “He said he was okay and trying to extend his time in this form”

Ninja sighed and gently urged Nomicon off the couch “Come on Nomi, you’re always lecturing me about over exerting myself” 

Nomicon gave a tired nod before changing back to his book form

Ninja picked him up and stashed him in his sash “I’ll see you guys tomorrow, tell the Crusaders I said bye”

* * *

 

Randy landed in the alley next to the Gamehole and removed his mask, peaking in to see if Howard was there “Oh, right he’s grounded” since the Gamehole wasn’t far from his house he decided to walk and enjoy the night air.

“Hi Randy”

Randy jumped and turned to see Debbie walking next to him, on his left side.

“Oh, hi Debbie” Randy said “What are you doing here?”

“Walking home, you?”

“Walking home”

Debbie glance to where his injury used to be and looked disappointed before noticing Randy was limping “what happened to your leg?”

“I pulled a muscle or something, not exactly sure yet”

“How?”

“Long story short, Howard and I were filming something for ShoobTube and I decided to try to do one of those kicks the Ninja does”

* * *

 

Debbie had her suspicions, but there was no visible scar from the gash the Ninja received that afternoon and that did sound like something him and Howard would hurt themselves doing. Sighing she bid Randy goodnight and left. Back to square one.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you just read this chapter is mostly based of a design choice I made when making pony Randy
> 
> this mainly came from the fact that I couldn't come up with a decent idea for a cutie mark for him. I have a few ideas for his cutie mark now.
> 
> also Cutie mark crusaders
> 
> I'm also bumping this up a rating just to be safe cause of the blood mentioned in this chapter
> 
> to be continued in the next chapter


	14. Blank Flank Part 2

**Blank Flank Part 2**

Randy as the Ninja stood with the Cutie Mark Crusaders and The mane six as well as Spike in the center of Whoopee World. The fillies were jumping around them in excitement, babbling about what they should do first. Randy had flattened his ears against his head to block them out as much as possible, which Rarity noticed.

"Give them until noon and they'll be out like a light and use these" she offered him a packet of disposable earplugs.

Randy took them, opened the packet and moved to put them in his ears when he realized his mask was blocking the way, looking down at the foam pieces he heard a few of the others snickering.

" I should probably keep them out anyway" He said "need to be ready to fight at any second"

"Yeah that would be a good idea" Twilight said.

* * *

 

After a while the girls choose their first ride, sadly for Rarity it was the barf-a-tron. Randy and Rainbow Dash were the first to recover, Rarity followed shortly after forgetting her nausea for fretting about her now messed up mane. Randy pulled a brush and mirror from his sash and offered them to her.

"Why I didn't know you were such a gentleman Ninja… Wait, Why do you have a brush and mirror on you?"

Randy shrugged "you pick up some tricks after 800 years, you'll not believe what you can do with a hand mirror besides look at your reflection" He decided to keep the fact that the suit could produce what he wanted a secret, Twilight already was baffled by the wings and Ninja rage, best not add to the list.

"And the brush?"

"I don't know, I just have it"

As Rarity restyled her mane Randy gaze settled on two familiar mares from his school. "Hey, I'll be right back" He said to Rainbow Dash who nodded and trotted over to Theresa And Debbie. He waited for them to finish their game and when the pony working the stall handed them their prize he peaked into their peripheral vision.

"Boo"

Theresa jumped and let out a surprised squeak while Debbie just jumped. "Ninja!"

Randy laughed while apologizing to them taking a deep breath to compose himself he let out a few shaky last laughs. "Sorry"

"What are you doing here, talking to us no less?" Debbie asked looking suspicious.

"For talking to you, I wanted to see if you guys were okay since I forgot to after that attack yesterday"

"I don't blame you" Theresa said "You looked like you were going to pass out while talking to Princess Celestia"

Randy laughed nervously his gaze focused on one of her wings which was in a cast "Is your wing okay?"

"Yeah just broken, but it isn't interfering with my twirl routine so It's okay"

"So what are you doing here?" Debbie interjected.

Randy pointed to the group of ponies he had come from "I'm with them, long story short my Mentor knows Princess Celestia and she is Twilight's Mentor, and they decided to have us meet and asked us to hang out for the day. Twilight already had plans to come here with her friends so I'm obliged to tag along" He said then leaned in a bit "but the only one who knows that is Twilight, the others think I'm here for the fillies"

"And why is that?"

Randy sensed Debbie's journalist side coming out and decided to leave "something I will not tell you, I think their ready to go so I'll see you guys Friday I hope" He sent a wink towards Theresa and trotted back to his group.

* * *

 

Debbie resisted the urge to follow him and looked at Theresa, "was it just me or did he wink at you?"

Theresa forced herself to stop watching the ninja and his group leave "what?"

"When he asked if we were alright he focused more on you, Going as far as to ask about your wing, and when he left he winked at you, I think he likes you"

"Me? He's a 800 year old Ninja who protects our city, I think he can do a lot better than me"

* * *

 

"You like her don't you?" Rainbow Dash smirked causing Randy to look at her with surprise on his face

"Is it that obvious?"

"Bout as obvious as a fox in a chicken coop" AppleJack said oblivious to Randy's involuntary shiver at the word chicken.

"Why don't you just ask her out?" Pinkie Pie chirped "In fact why don't you ask her and her friend to join us" she opened her mouth to shout to the Lilac Pegasus and the soft blue earth pony, only to have the Ninja's scarf wrap around her muzzle.

"Please don't" Randy said in a panicked voice "Look, all I can really say is that it's complicated"

"It's like like in the comics" Spike spoke up "The hero watches their love from afar to prevent their enemy from finding out about them and therefore protecting them"

"Yeah, that" Randy agreed

* * *

 

"Whats up Norrisville High?" Heidi chirped to her camera "Today we have a very special guest, The Ninja"

The crowd watching the interview clapped, Randy waved,forcing himself to keep a confident face despite his internal panic.

"Now shall we get started?" Heidi said looking at the paper that held her questions "Since your battle on Wednesday it's been the talk around town that you in fact a Blank Flank, do you think you can tell our viewers why?"

"Starting with the hard ones are we?" Randy quipped "To tell the truth I stopped caring about it years ago, I was happy without it and trying to get one just stressed me out" Randy took a breath, now that he had to mix in the fact that he was supposed to be a 800 year old ninja "And this was actually while I was protecting you guys about 200 years ago or so, Before that in the 13th century, when I was born Cutie Marks were rare and almost unheard of, if you had one good for you, if you didn't who cared? No one"

"Then why did you care so much 200 years ago?" Heidi asked.

"As you may have noticed, I do keep up with current time slang and ideas, When Cutie Marks became popular I was curious about what my special talent may be, so I decided to try to get one" Randy mentally patted himself on the back for coming up with that on the spot "Looking back at it, it wasn't the best idea because even if I got my Cutie Mark, I had already pledged to protect Norrisville"

Heidi nodded "So protecting us is keeping you from your destiny?" She felt a little bit of guilt wash over her.

"Randy picked up on the mood change among her and the crowd "don't be upset, we all make our choices and I made mine 800 years ago and now I live with it, and I'm quite happy with it" Randy laughed in a nervous way trying to lighten the mood "Why don't we move on to the next question"

Heidi nodded once again "So you've seemed to have picked up a sidekick, and we all would like to get to know him"

"He's not my sidekick, he's my mentor" Randy said "He checks in on me every now and then like a worried overprotective parent"

The crowd laughed and Randy perked up a bit.

"Never thought you would have a mentor" Heidi said "But I guess it makes more sense than sidekick"

"As Nomicon would say, 'Even the best start from nothing'" Randy said sitting up straighter when he quoted Nomicon.

"Oh...So what do you do when you're not protecting us?"

"Train and try to work on my sorry excuse for a social life"

A few ponies snickered, taking the comment as a joke.

Heidi open her mouth to ask about the last part, only to have Randy cut her off

"Long story short, being The Ninja takes up quite a bit of my time"

* * *

 

Mcfist watched the interview on his computer, and he was ready to throw said computer across the room. The interview wasn't giving him any useful information. The sound of a door swishing open alerted him to someone entering the room, the stout unicorn turned to see Viceroy.

"Is it done?" Mcfist asked

Viceroy smirked and pressed a button "it's been sent"

Mcfist started laughing maniacally until Marcy walked in holding a tray of cookies.

"Hannibal sweetie, I made cookies do you want some?"

"OOOOOOH, yes!"

Viceroy rolled his eyes and went back to his lab.

* * *

 

Meanwhile back with Heidi and Randy the interview was going without a hitch, it went like that until A red light started flashing from Randy's sash.

"What's that?" Heidi asked leaning a bit to get a better look

"My book of knowledge" Randy sighed taking out Nomicon and tapping the mask symbol on his cover twice, signaling Nomicon to stop. "It does this every now and then"

* * *

 

Heidi had to stop herself from staring at the book, She could have sworn she had seen her brother's friend Andy? with that book. But Debbie had already crossed him off since he was not hurt when the ninja was, glancing at Ninja she noticed that he was sitting in a way that would be painful with the injury he had sustained two days ago, It was like he was never hurt to begin with.

' _Okay , is Sandy? In the crowd_?" she thought. She took advantage of the moment when The Ninja moved to put his book only for it to growl at him, to look over the crowd, She kept a 'are you seeing this?' look on her face as She did so. She saw Howard, but no Rudy? And she knew the two were inseparable.

Usually this would be enough evidence for her, but this was the Identity of The Norrisville Ninja and She wanted to be 100% sure before saying anything.

Markings! Dandy? Had markings. Casting a glance at The Ninja She saw he was now having an argument with his sentient book, grabbing a piece of paper she started to write what she remembered about her brother's friends markings. He had three of them, all a shade of purple lighter than his mane and tail, with a splatter one that went from the back of his neck down his back stopping at his tail being the most noticeable. The other two were the tips of his ears and a small dot on the tip of his muzzle.

' _I can remember all this but not his name?_ ' Heidi thought. His muzzle marking would be the easiest the confirm, The Ninja would most likely pull up his mask to eat or drink something, exposing his muzzle.

"You know what, be that way!" The Ninja Huffed "We can continue this later" He reached for the water bottle on the table next to him, causing Heidi to perk up. He opened the water bottle and started to lift his mask, only to stop when his book growled.

"I said We'll continue this lat-" He was cut off by the unmistakable sound of a robot landing.

The crowd scattered and The Ninja didn't waste a second to spring out of his seat and charge the Bot.

The bot merely swatted him to the side and reached for The Ninja's book, still sitting on the char The Ninja was in just a moment ago.

Heidi panicked and grabbed the book using her magic, she screamed as she jumped off the stage and ran to where the Ninja was, the robot following her.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" The Ninja shouted, his voice cracking at the end.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Heidi shouted back, taking a chance she opened her eyes, colorful doodles danced across her vision telling her to throw the book. "Are the doodles normal!?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

That was all Heidi needed to know, She used all her might to throw the book in the direction of a clump of bushes, just as the robot grabbed her.

Ninja used his wings to fly up to her and freed her using his sword to cut off the robot's hand. When they reached the ground The Ninja's mentor, Nomicon stood there looking irate.

"Oh hey Sensei Nomicon" The Ninja laughed nervously like he knew why Nomicon was so irate.

Nomicon simply stood straighter and glared at the Ninja.

"Okay… so… I have a fifty foot robot to deal with so… we'll continue this later" Ninja said, slowly backing away before jumping back into the robot fight.

For the entire fight the robot seemed to ignore The Ninja and tried to reach Nomicon. Ninja eventually finished it off with a Air Fist attack. He moved to smoke bomb away only to stop when Nomicon cleared his throat.

* * *

 

Randy's entire world was swimming and swirling around him, he may have hit his head a couple times to many. He just wanted to Smoke bomb away and lay down, but Nomicon clearing his throat reminded him he had a lecture coming his way. He made his way over to Nomicon trying to not faceplant. He was aware of Nomicon lecturing him but he could not tell what it was about, most likely about leaving him on the chair earlier, putting Heidi in danger when she decided to keep Nomicon from the bot.

"Ninja?"

Randy became aware of somepony calling his name, but he felt to tired and dizzy to do anything.

"Ninja?!"

* * *

 

"Ninja?!" Nomicon spoke loudly, waving his hoof in front of his students face. He felt his anger disappear when Randy didn't respond, if he had just zoned out like he usually did during his lectures he would have snapped back to reality by now. Everything was replaced with panic when Randy's eyes rolled back into his head and he pitched forward, Nomicon caught him before he hit the ground.

"Ninja!" Nomicon had to stop Himself from saying Randy's name as He shook Randy gently in an attempt to wake him, he continued this for a couple minutes not sure what to do.

"May I help?"

Nomicon looked up to see Mrs. Driscoll the science teacher. The elderly unicorn had a first aid kit and a water bottle she most likely grabbed from the stage. Nomicon looked around and saw the other teachers were either helping the students that had got hurt in the chaos or were preventing the students from crowding around him and his unconscious student. He gently laid Randy on the ground and took a few steps back, which Mrs. Driscoll saw as a go ahead.

She used her magic to chill the water and then promptly dumped it on Randy's face, the shock caused by the cold water was enough to wake him up. He gasped and shot up a bit before he swayed on the spot and slowly laid down, his eyes half open like he was fighting to stay awake.

"Ninja?" Mrs. Driscoll said softly waiting for him to turn to her before continuing "I'm going to check your head for injuries, let me know if it hurts, okay"

Randy took a few seconds to process what she had said then nodded, he laid his head down on his legs and let Mrs. Driscoll gently feel around his head.

"Why his head first?" Nomicon asked observing Randy finally give up his fight to stay awake and closed his eyes.

Mrs. Driscoll Stomped her hoof down about an inch from Randy's muzzle causing him to jolt awake "cause he is displaying the symptoms of a concussion" She said pulling her hooves back from the Ninja's head when he hissed. She dug out a icepack from her first aid kit and placed it on the injured area "I'm surprised you don't know that"

Nomicon huffed "I know when my student is hurt and when to make him stop, I just didn't know what a concussion was"

Mrs. Driscoll let go of the icepack when The Ninja moved to hold it in place by himself "I didn't mean it like that, but I've done all I can here, take him home and don't let him sleep until he can hold a conversation and doesn't display any other symptoms, then and only then can you let him sleep and wake him every hour or so just to be safe"

Nomicon nodded "What are the symptoms so I can know when they're gone?"

Mrs. Driscoll pulled out a notepad and pen from her lab coat "I'm putting arrows next to the ones he's already displaying cause I'm going to write some he might exhibit later"

Nomicon read the list, nodded and started to push Randy onto his feet which Randy let out an exaggerated whine.

"Come on Ninja let's get you home, I'll make you that chocolate drink you like"

He had managed to get Randy to stand in the time it took Randy to process what he said "It's called hot chocolate" he slurred.

"Whatever" Nomicon huffed pushing Randy, encouraging him to walk forward before move to his side and supporting him so he wouldn't fall over. He could hear the sigh of relief coming from the crowd of students when they saw their hero walk on his own. They were almost halfway across the parking lot when Mrs. Driscoll ran up

"You forgot this" She handed them the list of symptoms "And I forgot to tell you to keep him from doing any type of activity that could risk another head injury for the next 24 to 48 hours to give him time to recover"

Nomicon took the list "thank you"

"Your welcome, but this is nothing compared to what Ninja does for us on a daily bases"

Nomicon looked down at Randy, who looked like he was about to pass out again. WIth a sigh he used his magic to pick him up and place him on his back.

Randy let out a whine of protest when his brain processed what was happening.

Nomicon ignored him and proceed to trot back to Randy's house.

* * *

 

It had been a few hours since Nomicon had gotten Randy home, Howard had somehow managed to beat them there and was now helping keep Randy awake by playing Grave Punchers with him. Though Nomicon started to think it was so he could beat him for once after watching them play the first few games.

It took four hours for all of Randy's symptoms to disappear and he pretty much fell asleep on the spot when he was given the okay. Howard had gotten bored and left so it was just Randy and Nomicon, Nomicon moved Randy to his bed and laid down next to him. He couldn't stop a smile from crossing his face when Randy subconsciously snuggled into him in his sleep.

Feeling the toll from being in his kirin form for to long he had no choice but to transform back to his book form, but before he rested himself he needed to make sure somepony would wake Randy. He wandered around the makeshift world he had made till he found the First Ninja also known as Satoru, the coral red colored pegasi was bathing in the sun on top of a rock formation. Nomicon approached him and explained the situation, asking him to keep an eye on Randy while he regains his strength.

Satoru nodded and jumped down from the rock formation so Nomicon could let him out of the book.

Nomicon watched Satoru settle down next to Randy before trudging to his own bed, days like this one were the ones that made him despise the spell that had been cast upon him.

"More like curse" he muttered to himself, curling up in his bed. He never blamed Celestia, he never did. He blamed himself for offering to be the test dummy in the first place. He glanced up at the scroll displaying what was happening outside and sighed when he saw Satoru enjoying real sunlight and Randy sleeping peacefully next to him. He waved the scroll away turned so his back was to the door of his room and let sleep take him over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter had a few headcannons like cutie marks in the early days 
> 
> and the First Ninja does reside in Nomicon's Book form, I have this idea that it's kinda like a complicated shloop, It doesn't take any of Nomicon's energy for him to be out of the book and he even has his own physical body.
> 
> Also Fowlham, I ship it 
> 
> But that and the other things will be covered in later chapters thank you for reading and have a nice day.


	15. Gala

**Gala**

Randy danced around the doodle monster Nomicon had created for him. Drawing his sword he charged causing the monster to lunge, Randy jumped over it with the assist of his wings and landed on its back. He dragged his sword down it’s back causing it cry out and fall over.

“And that is how, It’s done- ahhh!” Randy let out a shout of surprise as the monster used its tail to knock his legs out from under him. In one fluid movement the monster was on top of him, after getting up in his face the monster turned into a cutout and Randy kicked it off him.

 “Are you Bucking me!?” Randy groaned from his place on the ground 

“Those who get cocky, often lose sight of the important things” Nomicon grinned, moving to stand over Randy 

“Like a monster tail?”

“Like a monster tail” 

Randy sighed and stood up, Nomi stepping back so he could do so. “Are we done yet?” He asked, stretching out his muscles in attempt to get rid of their soreness.

Nomicon sighed “Yes we're done” Smirking, he reanimated the monster cut out and set it on the still stretching Randy.

Randy straightened with a sigh, ready to lay down and rest when he heard a growl. He whipped around just in time for the monster to ram into him, sending him flying.

Randy gasped as his mind returned to his body, standing up from the sprawled out position he was in he stretched his sore muscles once again. Moving to close Nomicon he saw two scrolls sitting on the floor of his room.

“Celestia sent you something” He said to Nomicon walking away so he could transform, grabbing his phone he started scrolling through his messages. All of them were from Howard, the first one was about hanging out followed messages that were along the lines of ‘why aren't you answering? Answer me!’

Randy rolled his eyes and texted back 

“Chill Howard, I was training with Nomi you should know that by now”

“This one's for you” Nomicon said holding out the scroll that was addressed to him, or rather the Ninja.

Confused Randy took the offered scroll and opened it. Two golden tickets fell out of the scroll and onto the floor, even more confused Randy bent down and picked them up .

“What’s the Grand Galloping Gala?” Nomicon asked holding a ticket of his own.

“Uhhhh, it’s a really fancy party that’s held at the Canterlot Palace every year” Randy off handley answered, his eyes grazing over the scroll that was the invitation for the Gala “Only the highest ranking ponies in society are invited, so everypony’s a somepony”

“Then why were we invited?”

“Because you’re Princess Celestia’s friend and she’s in charge of the invitations” Randy’s eye settled on a small note on his invite, written in fancy curved letters and purple ink 

‘Bring that friend you told us so much about - Twilight and Rarity’

“and by the looks of the note on mine Twilight and Rarity helped” 

Nomicon walked over and read the note “Something tells me you haven’t told them about Howards manners”

Randy nodded and read the invite again and looked at the tickets, finally his mind clicked. “SWEET CHEESE WE WERE INVITED TO THE GRAND GALLOPING GALA!”

“There it is” Nomicon muttered, not even flinching at the delayed outburst. 

Randy started to move across the room to grab his phone “I have to tell Howar-grk!” Randy was stopped when Nomicon used his magic to grab his tail and drag him back to next to him. Randy grunted as Nomicon dropped his rear end on the ground, he looked up with a annoyed look on his face and a huff.

“As much as I  _ love _ Howard” Nomicon said gritting out the word ‘love’ “I don’t think him and this Gala would mix very well”

Randy blinked up at Nomicon processing what he said “Why do you think that?” He asked.

Nomicon sighed opening his mouth to respond, only to be interrupted by the sound of the front door being slammed open.

“Yo Cunningham!” Howard called from downstairs “I’m bored wanna go to the Gamehole?” 

Randy saw what Nomicon meant after Howard left three hours later.

* * *

 

Randy nervously scrolled through his contacts until he reached the number he was looking for. As he waited for the other pony to answer he shuffled nervously in his seat, glancing at the tickets that sat on his desk.

“Hello?” A groggy voice mumbled through the phone.

“Danny?” Randy asked “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry I didn’t know I-I’ll call you back-”

“Dude I don’t care if you woke me, It’s noon anyway. What do you want?”

“It’s nothing worth waking you up for, I know you don’t get much sleep cause of you job as Phantom, I can wait”

“Once again” Danny mumbled “I don’t mind and it’s noon so my mom was gonna come in and wake me even if you didn’t call me”

As if on cue Randy could hear Danny’s mom enter his room telling him to wake up in a sing-songy voice.

“See? What did you call me for?”

“Well…” Randy began “I kinda sorta maybe… gotinvitedtotheGrandGallopingGala”

Randy heard Danny choke on air 

“Really?!” Danny half shouted 

“Yeah…. And I was wondering if-”   
“Yeah I will hero-sit Norrisville for you”

“What? No that was not what I was asking” Randy said taken aback “Saturo already said he could keep an eye on Norrisville for the night”

“Who’s Satoru?” 

“The first Ninja, he was preserved in Nomicon so he could see the defeat of the monster who killed his brothers”

“And who would that be?”

“The  Sorcerer”

“Ah” Danny said, Randy could practically hear his head nodding 

“Anyways” Randy said “I got an extra ticket to encourage me to bring a friend and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?”

Silence 

“Hello? Danny?”

“You realize I’m considered public enemy number one right now right?” 

“Yeah but you’re one of my only friends that knows I’m the Ninja, is capable of defending themselves if Mcfist tries to take them to figure out my identity, will not embarrass me with their (as Nomi puts it) atrocious manners, and will not cause that much of a scene while there”

“Why not Jake? He fits those requirements too”

“Cause he would have to go in dragon form,he’s not supposed to be in the public eye and he would have to go as a dragon, that’s the definition of scene causer”

“Point taken”

“Yeah… you don’t have to come if you don’t want to” Randy sighed “I would feel bad if the ticket went to waste, and I’m definitely  _ not _ bringing Howard” Despite being on the phone Randy gave a pleading look.

“Ugh, you’re doing the face aren't you?”

“Yeah”

“I don’t even need to see it to fall for it” Danny mumbled “Fine, I’ll come”

Randy grinned from ear to ear.

* * *

 

Randy made sure Nomicon was safe and tucked in his saddle bag as the train slowed to a stop before him. Boarding he sat down in one of the booths and pulled out one of his games and made sure his hood was pulled up. 

Randy had started to wear his hoodie at the beginning of the school year, mainly because it hid his markings, making him less of a target for bullies. 

Randy continued to play his game beating quite a few levels when he felt someone lightly tap his shoulder. Looking up he saw some familiar faces.

“Hi, sorry for bothering you but do you mind if we sit here? The rest of the train is full”

“Yeah, sure” Randy moved to get out of his seat.

“You don’t have to move” Twilight said 

“I’m not” Randy said moving so the six could get in “I’m meeting up with a friend and I want to make sure he can see me and I see him” He grinned sheepishly “that and I prefer the outside seat, I don’t like being crowded”  

Twilight nodded and moved into the both. When her and the others had saw the small earth pony they immediately recognized him as the pony that was Nomicon only a couple months ago,he was slumped over playing his game with earbuds in and his hood up, he looked more like a normal teenager rather than a nobel, 800 year old warrior. Still going with the theory that the Ninja and the pony we’re the same pony Twilight felt a little hurt when she saw he was alone. After a while of looking for a spot to sit they realized the only spot open was with the pony. Twilight perked up when he mentioned that he was meeting up with a friend, she slid into the booth and watched as he sat down and continued his game.

“What are you playing?” asked Rainbow Dash who was sitting next to him.

“The new Daring Do game” The pony said removing a earbud and offering it to her, which she excitedly accepted.  

Twilight tuned out the conversation shortly after, focusing on her book. She wasn't quite sure how much time had passed but they were at the next stop already.

“Now boarding Amity Park, Amity Park now boarding!”

The pony they were with paused his game and look around as ponies boarded. When a white earth pony with a messy black mane, soul piercing blue eyes, and a rocketship cutie mark boarded he waved 

“Danny!”

Danny look in their direction and smiled “Randy!”  he trotted over and hoof bumped with Randy. 

“How have you been?” Randy asked 

“Good, you”

“Pretty good” Randy schooched over so Danny could join them “What you been up to lately?” 

“Well” Danny pulled a piece of paper out of his bag “I got accepted into the Celestial Space camp Program”

“Dude no way!” Randy took the piece of paper and read it “Way to go! I didn’t even know you signed up!” 

Twilight smiled and went back to her book.

* * *

 

After arriving in Canterlot Randy and Danny spent their free time exploring and hanging out, when the time finally came they headed back to their hotel room to get ready for the Gala. Randy growled as he struggled with the formal Japanese robes Nomicon had given him, it was being worn over his ninja suit and he couldn’t figure out how they worked. Nomicon laughed and started to help Randy, wearing his own formal robes. Danny sat to the side in a fancy suit snickering at Randy’s misfortune.

“Shouldn’t you be Phantom and not Fenton?” Randy growled, still frustrated at his robes.

Danny shrugged and changed, his black suit with a pinkish-purple tie turned into a white one with a bright green tie that matched his eyes.

“Let me guess, you went shopping with Sam?” Randy snorted. 

“Actually, yes” Danny beamed “She’s actually gonna be at the Gala as well” 

“Why didn’t she join us on the train?” 

“She’s already here” Danny said “She came here with her parents a couple days ago”

Randy shrugged “makes sense” 

“There” Nomicon said, finishing the robes “that should do it” 

Standing up Randy glanced at the clock “We should go if we don’t want to be late”

* * *

 

Twilight sat with Celestia and Luna in the entrance hall where guest were greeted. Most of the guest that were on the list were already here and there was no sign of Nomicon and Ninja. Shifting from foot to foot she tried not to look nervous as she was.

“Relax Twilight, I’m sure they're just running late” Celestia said.

“Who’s running late?”

Twilight jumped and turned to see Nomicon, Ninja, and a pony she recognized from the newspaper, she laughed nervously as all the ways things could go wrong with a declared public enemy there flashed through her head. 

“Sorry if we worried you” Nomicon said “We hit a couple snags on the way here”

“That’s perfectly fine” Celestia chuckled “As long as you’re here, Twilight why don’t you join them in the ballroom? I’ll join you when the rest of the guest get here”

Twilight nodded and lead the rest to the ballroom, when they got there Phantom approached a lilac pegasus with a beautiful gothic dress and started to talk to her. As Phantom and the pegasus talked Twilight turned to Ninja ready to ask him why he brought a public enemy when a familiar voice stopped her. 

“Nomicon?!”

Nomicon, as well as everyone else turned to see ….

“Discord?” Nomicon asked in disbelief before getting crushed via hug by the Draconequus. 

“It’s been forever” Discord squealed “But you haven’t changed a bit, I mean you haven't aged a bit I thought you would be old and gray by now” He said ageing himself as he said the last bit.

Nomicon snickered “Last time I checked you were a statue” He shot back 

Discord feigned being hurt by the comment “Ah well that’s in the past, I’m a different Draconequus now” he scoffed before brightening up “come, I must introduce you to Fluttershy!” he grabbed Nomicon by one of his forelegs and dragged him away.

Twilight kept a smile on her face until the two were out of sight before whipping round to face Ninja.

“Why in the name of Celestia did you bring a public Enemy here!” 

Ninja flinched away “He’s not a public enemy, I mean yeah Amity Park named him one but trust me when they will take any chance to throw shade on him”

Twilight gave him a sceptical look, causing him to sigh

“Look, I would never ruin this party on purpose and I've known Danny long enough to know he wouldn’t either” He explained “I know you were expecting Howard but he’s not exactly the kind of pony you bring to parties like this and trust me when I say he would have probably caused a bigger scene and mess than Phantom ever will”

Twilight continued to give him a sceptical look before sighing “Alright I trust you, but if he causes  _ one _ scene I’m  _ personally _ kicking him out”

Ninja nodded before trotting over to where Phantom was.

* * *

 

Nomicon smiled and nodded as Discord talked about some chaos related topic he had lost track of what Discord was talking about a while ago, looking over to Fluttershy he saw she was doing the same thing.

“So, basically I tried to send her to another dimension” Discord finished “But Fluttershy said no” 

“She was my friend Discord” Fluttershy deadpanned “ You don’t send your friend’s friends to other dimensions”

Discord scoffed and turned his attention to Nomicon “so what have you been doing for all these years, besides being a book?”

Nomicon had never been happier when a waiter offered them some glasses of some type of alcoholic beverage, he didn’t care taking a offerd glass he took a big gulp of the mystery liquid inside. Hoping it would be enough to help him work up a nerve.

“Well someone's thirsty” Discord chortled 

Nomicon took a deep breath “up until the last 800 years I was ‘being a book’ as you put it, but for the last 800 years I’ve been involved in a chaos related thing”

“Oooooohhhhhh!” 

“Not the kind of chaos you like, it’s the ‘everything is terrible and we are going to die’ kind of chaos”

Discord deflated a little bit but remained interested

“Basically when you were statue this guy known as The Sorcerer rose up and tried to claim your title as ‘Lord of Chaos’”

“Oh please! like he could” Discord scoffed

“He came dangerously close to doing so” Nomicon said “I think one of the reason why was because he used chaos in the destructive kind of way, you use it in a ‘what's the fun in making sense’ kind of way”

“Oh please! I can be destructive”

“Let’s put it this way” Nomicon sighed “You are definitely more powerful than him , but he was more destructive”

“Okay I’ll take that” Discord smiled “What did you do with him?”

“He is currently imprisoned in a hole underground, put there by my owner at the time” 

“So how are you involved in this?”

“He runs the chance of escaping so it’s my job to choose and train a warrior to fight against him and his creations, been that for 800 years now” Nomicon explained “And I actually enjoy it”

“So… why doesn't Norrisville know about him?” Fluttershy asked, causing Nomi to jump

“To prevent fear, the Sorcerer runs off fear and other negative emotions, so in order to keep people safe we keep him a secret”

“Fair enough” Discord huffed.

* * *

 

Twilight half listened to the conversation Rainbow Dash was having with Phantom, something about a race. Rarity and the goth pegasus who had joined Ninja and Phantom, Sam if she was correct, had started chatting up a storm as well, apparently the dress Sam was wearing was a modified dress from Rarity’s Pretty in Pink line.

“I’m surprised you’re not mad as the designer” Sam said 

“Absolutely not dear you did it justice with your modifications” Rarity insisted “though I must ask why you didn’t just but a dress from my gothic beauty line?”

“Oh I didn’t buy this my mom did, she’s trying to get me to act like a normal girl with the whole wearing dresses and doing makeup and stuff”

“But you are wearing makeup and a dress right now”

“I know, but it’s not good enough cause the makeup isn’t fine and sophisticated and the dress is black and not pink” Sam ranted before something clicked in her head “Wait, you have a gothic line?”

“Why yes, every mare should express themselves however they want and if they like it dark and gothic that doesn't mean they can do dark and gothic faboulsy”

Twilight watched as Sam smiled and looked excited that someone was taking her side for once. Shaking her head she decided if she was going to listen in on any conversation it should be Rainbow’s and Phan- 

“Where’d they go!?” the place where the two had been standing was empty, Twilight spun in a circle frantically looking for any sign of the two. When she couldn’t spot them she groaned and trotted to the balcony. 

On the balcony she spotted Ninja as well as a few other guest,including Mcfist who was glaring daggers at Ninja. Ninja had a small glass of water and a plate of food balanced on the balconies rail and was looking up towards the sky. Looking up Twilight saw the two ponies she was looking for having a friendly race. Twilight sat down next to Ninja and sighed.

“Those two just gave me a scare, I looked away for one second and they were gone” She chuckled. 

“Well what did you expect from two speedsters” Ninja laughed, pulling up his mask he grabbed a finger sandwich and popped it into his mouth.  

Twilight stared at the small, purple dot that sat on the Ninja’s muzzle, it was one of the last pieces of evidence she needed to confirm her theory of the Ninja and the pony from the train being one of the same. She must have stared to long cause she was broken out of her thoughts when Ninja waved a hoof in front of her face.

“Helloooo? Anyone there?”

“Oh sorry it’s just, well….ummm” Twilight couldn’t find any words to let Ninja he had a marking that could reveal his identity showing, so she just tapped her nose where his marking was.

“What? Do I have something on my…..oooohhhh” Ninja covered his marking with his hoof as he laughed “I’ve worn this mask for so long I actually forgot I had that”

Twilight adjusted her position to face Ninja better and caught glimpse of Mcfist creeping closer as if he was trying to discreetly see something. All her warning bells that had been finely tuned over years of being an Element of Harmony went off, she knew Mcfist was a shady guy but this was a whole new level. 

She turned back to Ninja and saw he was focusing on a gemstone on her dress, a glance down was enough for her to see it was reflecting Mcfist’s advance so the Ninja could see without turning around.  

“Why don’t we join Phantom and Rainbow before they start another race?” Ninja asked pulling down his mask and willing his wings to appear.

Twilight nodded, which was enough for Ninja who took to the sky. Twilight used her magic to grab Ninja’s food and drink as a ‘just incase’ and followed.

“Okay.... I knew Mcfist was a shady guy but that was a whole new level of creepy” She said when she reached the others.

“Yeah” Ninja said rubbing the back of his neck “He’s been trying to reveal my identity for a while now, and he will do some creepy things to do so”

“Why don’t you just tell Norrisville about it?” Rainbow Dash asked 

“Cause the only other pony they ‘worship’ just as much as me is him” Ninja explained “And I’m not that worried, I’m 800 years old I don’t really don’t have an identity outside of the Ninja, plus it’s fun to mess with him”

“So I guess Randy is just a way for you to travel without drawing attention?” Twilight asked

Ninja stiffened a little bit “I knew that was coming” He muttered

“Wait” Rainbow said “I thought we were going to wait for a little bit more evidence before we confronted him” 

“I did” Twilight responded “He has a marking on his muzzle where Randy did” she tapped her own muzzle where the marking was

“I don’t mean to interrupt but Mcfist appears to be trying to listen in” Phantom said 

All of them glanced down, with Ninja using Twilight’s reflective dress once more, and sure thing Mcfist was leaning on the balcony rail with his ears perked up.

“I don’t think he actually heard anything” Rainbow Dash said relaxing a bit   

“Only one way to find out” Ninja smirked “Mcfist sucks” he said in the same hushed tone they were using.

No response from Mcfist

“Okay” Ninja said “I pretty sure he’s gonna ask what you saw on my nose so you guys want to help me come up with a little fib to throw him off?”

“Sounds fun I’m in!” Rainbow Dash Whispered

“I’ll help as well” Twilight agreed

* * *

“They had to be just out of earshot” Mcfist growled as he leaned in a bit more trying to hear the conversation The Ninja was having with the Princess and the two other ponies. The Princess had seen something on The Ninja’s nose, something he could use. The four ponies were talking in a hushed tone, that much he could tell but that was common at parties like the Gala .

He watched as The Princess offered everyone a sandwich from the plate she was carrying, The Ninja as well as the black and white pony accepted one. When The Ninja lifted his mask to eat the food item the blue pegasus perked up

“Wow! Is that a tattoo?!”

“No it’s actually a birthmark” The Ninja laughed. Mcfist smiled evilly now that they were talking at a normal volume he could hear.

“Really?” asked the Princess “It looks more like a tattoo” 

“Yep!” The Ninja grinned “It’s actually one of the reasons why Nomicon chose me to be his apprentice all those years ago”

“So….Awesome!” 

“Thank you”

“Well I better go check on the other guests” The Princess said “see you guys later”

“Bye Twilight” the remaining three said all at once 

When the Princess landed on the balcony Mcfist approached her

“Excuse me? May I ask what the small bit of commotion from you and those other ponies was about?” He asked in a fake sugary sweet tone.

“Oh it was so cool” The Princess nerded out “He has a birthmark marking on his nose that looks  _ exactly _ like the symbol on his suit! But his mentor wore that symbol before he was even born so his marking was that of an existing clan!” She had started to ramble “I didn’t even know that was possible, Guess I know my next research project!” 

“There you are Twilight” Princess Luna said from the doorway “The guests were asking about you?”

“Be right there Luna” The Princess said cheerfully “I’ll talk to you later Sir, I have to attend to the other guest” And with that she trotted away.  

When The Ninja and his friends landed next to him Mcfist made eye contact and grinned evilly, he felt his grin grow when the Ninja gave him a confident glare in return, he didn’t know what the Princess had said about him.

“I got you now Ninja” He whispered “Now where’s Viceroy?”

* * *

 

Nomicon Smirked as he downed another glass of champagne, watching as the Lilac dressed Pegasus across from him giggle as Discord made upside down pyramids from the empty glasses.

“I have no idea why this is funny but it is” Viceroy breathed. 

“I think it’s because you’re drunk” Discord Snickered 

“Hey, I’m not drunk” The scientist snorted “I only had….” He stopped to count the empty glasses “16 glasses”

“Of a drink that is acholic, on an empty stomach” Discord added on with a huff “And now you’re giggling like a little school girl with a crush, You’re drunk” 

Nomi laughed and shook his head

“Hey Nomi!” A voice called out,Nomicon looked to the source of the call

“Oh, heyyy Ninja” Viceroy giggled out “How’s your night going?”

Randy slowed to a stop and looked at Viceroy with concern “Is he alright?” He asked turning to Nomicon and Discord 

“Pfft, He’s fine just a little tipsy that's all” Discord reassured the young Ninja in his own way “that's what you get when you chug 16 glasses of that stuff on an empty stomach”

Randy groaned into his front hooves

“So you must be Nomicon’s current owner slash apprentice” Discord said giving Randy a once over “you don’t look a day over 14, How are you supposed to be 800?”

Randy snorted and flattened his ears against his head, It wasn’t like Discord was wrong or anything He just felt like he should take offence to the Draconequus’s words.

“Oh, come now” Discord crooned “You should take that as a compliment, Lots of ponies wish they could remain young forever”   

“Discord, be nice” Fluttershy scolded   

“But I didn’t say anything mean” Discord whined 

“He’s fine” Randy said before pushing Nomi out of his seat “Anyway I need to borrow Nomicon for a bit, I’ll bring him back when I’m done”

Randy lead Nomicon away from the party “Okay I need to talk to you about something but first why is there a drunk Viceroy at your table?” He asked nervously glancing back to the party, looking back he saw Nomicon snickering “are you drunk too?”

“No, just thought that was funny” Nomi sighed “But basically he saw me down some champagne came over with a couple drink trays and challenged me to a drinking contest” Nomi paused for a bit in thought “Now that I think about it, maybe he was trying to get me drunk for information. But little did he know I’m the saké champion!”

“Riveting” Randy mumbled sarcastically “Anyways, so Twilight and Rainbow saw that marking I have on my nose and they were able to draw the conclusion that me and unmasked me are the same” He chuckled nervously “BUT they don’t know that I’m NOT 800 so I have that going for me”

Nomicon sighed “I have no idea what to think about this” He said “I mean you told Howard and he’s definitely more of a loudmouth than those two so, do you trust them with you identify?”

“I guess I do” Randy said “I mean they helped me come up with a lie to throw Mdfist off when he caught on to the comotion”

“What was the lie?” Nomicon huffed

“Well…”

* * *

 

Randy collapsed onto the hotel bed when he got back, with the exception of Rarity and Sam’s mother getting into a fight, and Mcfist purposely running into him in an attempt to remove his mask, the night had been uneventful. He heard Danny flop down on his own bed and became aware of Nomicon’s book from sitting next to him on the bed, he yawned and stretched out not even bothering to remove his mask as sleep welcomed him into it’s open arms.

* * *

 

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?” Mcfist yelled at a hungover Viceroy. Viceroy flinched and held his head for a bit before sassing back.

“I was thinking if I got him drunk I could get some useful information out of him, HOW was I supposed to know he had a high alcohol tolerance?”      

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live!!! Happy late new year everyone!  
> I hope you're enjoying the story and thank you for reading   
> saké- Japanese rice wine


	16. The Ninja and the Nomicon

**The Ninja and The Nomicon**

“Hey, Satoru?”

“Hmm?”

“How did Nomicon come to be in your possession?”

Satoru calmly looked at the young stallion laying next to him, the book form of Nomicon in his hooves.

“Well, I guess it won't hurt you to know”

* * *

 

A little over 800 years ago a group of nine Pegasus nobles walked through the village known as Norrisville, they had just finished training in the surrounding forest and were heading home for the day. The Pegasus in the lead was Satoru, he wore a bright red Haori to cover his cutie mark since he was the one of the very few ponies that had one in the town. He still wasn’t sure what the cutie mark meant,there wasn’t even a name for them at the time, but he decided to play on the safe side and keep it hidden.

“Hey, Satoru?” Asked one of his younger brothers, Aki.

“Yes?”

“Do you think you can help me with close combat tomorrow?” Aki asked “I’m not as good as everyone else”

“Of course” Saturo smiled at his younger brother before addressing the rest “If you need anything from the market go ahead We’ll meet back home”

With that said all of them except and Satoru and Isamu went in in different directions to visit the different shops. The two oldest brothers continued on their way home in silence till Isamu say a small shop that was never there before.

“That's new” He said pointing out the small shop.

Satoru looked where his brother was pointing, the shop despite being new at least to them, it looked rundown, old, and like it would collapse any minute.

“Wanna check it out?” He asked to which his brother nodded. They approached the shop, hesitating before they entered. Inside the shop was various items that didn’t seem to go along with each other, various articles of clothing, weapons, amulets, books, scrolls, everyday household items,living creatures kept in small cages, and even a skeleton of an unknown creature which was suspended from the ceiling.

“Why do I feel like we just walked into a magic shop” Isamu whispered

“Cause I think we did” Satoru whispered back

When the sound of something shuffling could be heard from the back of the store, the two looked at each other before investigating. Satoru determined it was coming from a bookshelf and moved closer. When a serpentine tail that was curled around a stack of books came into view, he feared one of the creatures in the cages might have escaped. He slowly circled the stack of books to see what was on the other side.

“What in the name of the Gods?”

A small dragon was what greeted him on the other side, it had a dark, moss green serpentine body with short legs, dark green ridges ran down the length of his back to the tip of its tail, its head sported two pale green horns that were just starting to grow in and from the angle he was at he could see its underbelly matched its horns in color. The dragon was currently standing on its hind legs, stretching its body as for as it would go trying to put a book on the top shelf of the bookshelf.

“Hello” Satoru softly greeted the dragon, jumping when it curled up on itself with surprising speed. Two bright green eyes stared up at him. The two stared at each other before the dragon smiled in a welcoming manner.

“Hello” it said “welcome to the shop, my name is Souta feel free to ask me anything if you are curious about something” when he was finished talking he returned to trying to shelf the book.

“May I ask what you sell here?” Satoru asked “My brother and I saw this place and decided to check it out”

“Satoru? Who are you talking to?” Isamu asked out coming out from behind a shelf

Satoru pointed to Souta “This guy, he works here I guess”

Souta sent Isamu a nervous glance before he jumped and managed to get the book he was trying to put away halfway on the shelf. Gravity decided that it didn’t like the small dragon and book fell off the shelf, Sarotu caught the book and effortlessly put it on the top shelf for Souta.

“Thanks” Souta smiled and grabbed another book from the pile, before he could start the process all over Isamu rearranged a stack of books into a makeshift staircase for him. The dragon climbed them easily and smiled brightly as he put his book away with ease

“Thank you again” Souta chirped “Now to answer your question”

“We sell spells and enchanted items” A new female voice cut in.

Satoru turned to see a white unicorn with a long Blue-violet mane, her turquoise eyes seemly staring into ones soul. A strand of pink pearls hung around her neck, but what got Satoru’s attention the most was her cutie mark, a potion bottle with a heart made from the vapors coming out of the bottle.

“We also sell spell books and scrolls, as well as magical pets/ assistants” She finished using her magic to put away the remaining books

“That was my job” Souta said.

“Yes it was, but now it’s time for you to make lunch for us both”

Souta nodded and disappeared behind a curtain. When the dragon was gone the unicorn's magic extended over the whole store, cleaning and organizing the items that resided within.

“I guess I should introduce myself” She said “I’m Love Spell, the owner and that little dragon was my assistant Souta”

Satoru nodded, not really sure what to say.

“You forgot a book” Isamu said, picking up a book from a table.

“That's not a spell book” Love Spell said without even casting a glance at the book “its enchanted, so I keep it separated form the rest”

Satoru looked at the book in his brothers hooves, it was black with red markings and a symbol in the center of the cover “How is it enchanted?”

“Well, it comes off as sentient, able to respond to some stimuli” Love Spell started she stopped when Isamu tried to open it to no avail “it’s also selective to who opens it”

“May I see it?” Satoru asked his brother who nodded and handed it to him. When the book made contact with his hooves it glowed a bright red and hummed, Satoru yelped and dropped the book. The book growled as it hit the ground.

“The noise is new” Love Spell said, stopping her cleaning to look at the book on the floor.

Satoru slowly picked up the book and went to try to open it,to his surprise the book opened. He flipped through the pages before casting a glance to his brother who looked just as shocked as he did.

“It likes you” Love spell said

“Is it safe?” Satoru asked not quite sure what to think about the current turn of events.

“I far as I know, yes” Love Spell sighed “never got to open it before”  

“Satoru Look” Isamu gasped pointing at the symbol on the cover.

Satoru nearly dropped the book once again, the symbol had changed! It was once a silhouette of the head of some creature he didn’t know, it looked like a pony but with a backwards curved horn and deer antlers. Where that symbol was was now his cutie mark, a dragon that was made of fire and curling around to form a circle, he would later come to know it as his dragon punch.

He put the book back on the table and backed away laughing nervously.

“Where did you get that?” Isamu growled, becoming defensive.

“Won it from a guy after I beat him at a game of Go” Love spell seemed to ignore Isamu’s harsh tone”but it doesn't really serve me any purpose since it will only open for certain ponies so if you want it it's yours”

Satoru was actually surprised with himself when started to consider the unicorns offer, He had always loved books and this one was peaking his interest. Why only open for certain ponies? Was there some sort of secret hidden inside?

Isamu must have noticed his thoughtful expression because he ushered Satoru to the far end of the store from where they were standing.

“Are you honestly thinking about buying that thing?”

“I guess” satoru shrugged “I mean it seems safe enough”

“Yeah, safe _enough_ ” Isamu hissed “Next to nothing is know about that thing Not even she” He pointed in the direction they came from “Knows if it’s entirely safe”

Satoru ruffled his wings as he thought “How about I take it to Plop Plop first” He suggested “If he says it's not safe I’ll bring it back here”

“Fine” Isamu huffed before walking away towards the exit.

Satoru watched the off white pegasus walk away before trotting back to where the book was kept.

* * *

 

Satoru laid down on his bed and held the book out in front of him, after Plop Plop gave a hesitant ‘its safe’ he was eager to read it. Opening the book he flipped through the pages, the first few had some writing on them, but they were in a language he didn’t recognize. The rest were blank, Satoru sighed and moved to close the book when it flashed. The pages of the book moved by themselves and a soft yellow glow could be seen coming from them, Satoru felt a little tried for a bit then snapped back to awareness when the glow stopped.

“That was weird” he mutterd

The book had settled on a blank page and words had appeard on it

“Hello”

Satoru stared, did the book do that or was that there before and he just missed it? “Umm.. Hello?”

To his surprise and fright word melted into existence on the page right before him.

“My name is Nomicon”

“Uh… Hello Nomicon, what kind of enchantment allows this?”

“I’m not enchanted”

Satoru felt his stomach sink “so your cursed?”

“No”

Satoru sighed

“I’m a mind and soul trapped inside this book”

“So you are cursed but in a way that will not harm me?”

“No, I allowed the soul binding to happen, the spell went wrong and I got stuck like this”

“Oh, so why were you interested in me at the shop?”

“I sensed you heart, you have one of a hero I want to help you become one if you are okay with that”

“Can my brothers join? We all work together to protect this village”

“I don’t see why not if they all have similar hearts to your brother that was in the shop with you, he has just as much potential”

Satoru smiled before something clicked “wait, if your a book, how will you help us?”

“I have 15,000 years worth of knowledge”

Satoru’s eyes widened at that number, that was old, like that Princess from that Equestria kingdom old

“I can also do this” The Nomicon brought colored ink forth on the pages to form colorful moving pictures that displayed different fighting moves.

“Okay thats neat” Satoru said still trying to wrap his head around what was going on “So if you going to help me and my brothers, can you allow them to open you as well or does it not work that way?”

“They will be able to open me and read what I have to say unless I don’t want them to, same goes for you I chose who reads what lies in these pages”

* * *

 

“So I said yes” Satoru finished “after a couple years he got strong enough to schloop and it made things a bit easier”

“So... you got him from a magic shop?”

“Yep”

“Can he still do the ink thing?”

“I don’t know, ask him yourself”

Randy looked down at the dormant book “Hey Nomi, can you still do the ink thing?”

Nomicon open up to random page “yes but it’s not as convenient as schlooping or transforming”

“You could use it to talk to me in class when you need to with out making me leave or look like I fell asleep”

“I guess that is a good use for it”

Satoru rolled his eyes as Randy beamed, proud of his idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm perfectly aware how the First Ninja comes to be in possession of Nomicon in the show. I wanted to do something that fit this universe a bit better  
> The season finale will still be a cannon event but the event will play out a little different in this universe.  
> Thanks for reading and have a nice day :)


	17. Friendship Problem Part 1

**Friendship Problem Part 1**

Randy had tuned Howard out a long time ago, deciding to focus on the game in front of him instead. Danny had called him and nervously told him he,Sam, and Tucker had been selected for the student exchange program Amity Park and Norrisville were having, meaning they were going to be there for a week. Randy had offered them a place to stay at his house and had to reassure Danny that Valerie, AKA The Red Huntress could handle Amity without him. When he told Howard he had had blew his lid, ranting about how it would cut back on their bro time and how how he should cut off ties with Danny. Used to this behavior from Howard, Randy ignored him.

"ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?!" Howard shouted at him

"No, I tuned you out a while ago" Randy said, not taking his eyes off his game

"That's rude"

"I'm rude?!" Randy finally ripped his eyes from his game "that's rich coming from you"

"What's that mean?"

"Oh gee lets see, I tell you some friends of mine that live halfway across Equestria are coming to stay with us for a week and the first thing you say is I should end my friendship with them" Randy made a counting motion with his hoof "Every time I need do my responsibility as the Ninja you start being all 'ditch the book he's ruining our fun'"

"Well he is!"

"Well maybe you should learn what responsibility is and actually do something for yourself for once!" Randy snapped

The two stared at each other for awhile, normally they would burst into laughter and makeup, but that didn't happen this time. Both had reached the end of their metaphorical rope with the other.

When nothing had been said in between the two for a agonizingly long time Randy set down his controller, grabbed his bag, and stormed out of Howard's room.

Upon arriving home Randy made a straight belign for his room.

"Oh, hi sweetie I thought you were sleeping over at Howard's"

Randy looked up at his mom, A light purple unicorn with a violet-blue mane and bright green eyes with a cutie mark of soft, yellow, paper lanterns rising up into the night sky.

"Hi Mom, I thought you and Mum were going out tonight"

"We are, once she gets home, what are you doing here?"

Randy decided not to tell her about the fight, he didn't want to ruin their night "I just forgot something I'm grabbing it real quick then I'm back at Howard's"

"Alright sweetie, have fun" Paper Lantern continued tidying the room she was in. Randy entered his room and grabbed his sketch book. Running down the stairs he left the house and made his way to the woods surrounding Norrisville. Donning his mask he allowed his wings to appear and took to the sky, he found a cloud to rest on and landed. Enjoying the softness of his resting place, he pulled Nomicon out of his suits sash.

"Hey, can we talk?"

Nomicon glowed brilliantly as the silhouette of a pegasus jumped out followed by the book turning into Nomicon's Kirin form. Satoru settled down next to Randy and Nomicon sat down across from them.

"What's bothering you young ninja?" Nomicon asked, his concern showing through.

Randy continued to try to hold back his emotions "I had a fight with Howard" His voice cracked as he spoke. He felt Satoru's wing settle around him a hug like gesture and broke, allowing the tears he had been holding back to flow down his face and soak into his mask .

Nomicon and Satoru let the distressed Ninja cry, confronting him. As much as the both disliked Howard, they both knew how much he meant to Randy as his lifelong best friend and how much that played into his happiness.

* * *

"Two friendship problems in one place?"

Twilight stared at the Cutie Map, it was asking for Her and Rainbow Dash as well as Fluttershy and Discord to go to Norrisville.

"Well that's new" Rainbow Dash said, just as disbelieved as Twilight.

"Does mean I can get a throne now?" Discord asked

"We'll see" Fluttershy said as the others rolled their eyes

"How could there be more than one in Norrisville?" Twilight asked "It's never assigned more than one problem, let alone in the same place"

"I learned not the question the map along time ago" Rainbow Dash sighed "But I'm still just as confused as you"

Twilight sighed "go home and pack, we leave on the next available train"

"Me too?"

"Yes Discord, the map wants you to come as well"

Discord let out a poorly contained squeal of excitement

* * *

"I say we check out the school first" Twilight said as she and the others stepped of the train "with that many young ponies in one place something is bound to happen"

"I agree with Twilight " Fluttershy spoke quietly

""Alright see you there" Rainbow Dash called out as she dashed off in the direction of the school.

The Twilight and Fluttershy settled into a trott before they noticed Discord was standing frozen on the platforms edge.

"Discord? Are you alright?" Fluttershy asked, when Discord didn't answer she trotted back over to him and pulled on his lion paw.

"What?"

"Are you alright? You froze up"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, yeah just fine just got a strange tingle in my spine, will happen every now and then"

Fluttershy gave him a skeptical look but said nothing and brought him over to Twilight and continued their way to the school.

* * *

Randy absentmindedly doodled on his paper as Mrs. Driscoll spoke about some science thing he really didn't care about, Howard sat next to him glaring holes into his own paper. The two would occasionally share a glance at each other, Randy would morph his distress into anger when he meet Howard's eyes. He rubbed the charm Nomicon insisted he wore as a just in case, it would hide his negative emotions from the Sorcerer's detection. Howard pushed a paper onto his desk with a hastily scribbled note

'I'm waiting for that apology'

Randy held back a growl and wrote his response

'For what? having other friends? For being the Ninja? For either one it's a no, now leave me alone'

Howard didn't say or write anything after that and settled with shifting his glare away from his paper to Randy, who responded by putting up his hood to block Howard from his peripheral vision.

* * *

As Twilight and Fluttershy arrived at the school Discord fought the urge to turn and run, he understood why Nomicon thought this guy could take his title. The Sorcerer was locked up and weakened but Discord still felt the chaos radiating from him, and it wasn't the good kind.

"Discord? Are you alright?"

Discord focused on the three ponies in front of him, all of them looked worried. Knowing he couldn't keep up the act for long he decided to tell the truth.

"No I'm not okay, there's a really strong chaos energy here and it's messing with my senses"

"You can sense chaos?" Twilight asked

"Yes, how do you think I was always able to show up when it was most inconvenient for you" Discord took the time to let his snake like tongue dance through his teeth as Twilight gave him a deadpan stare.

"Is there anything we can do to help" Fluttershy asked

"Not unless you can block off my chaos sense"

Twilight but her lip as she thought "I...don't think I know any spells like that, sorry Discord"

"It's alright Twilight" Discord sighed then stiffened as he felt the energy surge

"Discord?"

"Something's happening and it's not good"

At that moment a large, purple, gorilla like monster burst through the wall and roared as students in the area scattered, screaming.

The four retreated a safe distance and a short while later the Ninja arrives to fight the monster.

The first thing Twilight noticed was that Ninja was not being his usual blabbermouth, he seemed to not be very focused on the fight like his mind was somewhere else.

When the Ninja finally managed to turn the monster back to a student she called out to him before he could smoke bomb.

"Ninja!"

Ninja looked over at them and trotted over

"Meet me on the school roof" and with that he smoke bombed. When the smoke cleared a chubby, light blue unicorn with a bright orange mane could be seen glaring daggers at them from a distance. They ignored him and made their way around the school to access the roof without prying eyes. Ninja was waiting for them, after sharing a quick greeting they sat down in the center of the roof.

"What brings you guys here?" Ninja asked, pulling out Nomicon so he could join them, only for Discord to pull him away.

"We have this map that asks us to go to places and fix problems" Rainbow Dash said

" _Friendship_  problems" Twilight corrected

"So it asked you to come here?" Ninja asked looking nervous

"yep"

Ninja was about to speak when Nomicon walked over from where Discord had pulled him over to and grabbed a necklace from his neck

"Hey"

"Don't worry, I'll give it back" Nomicon assured him "I just want to try something real quick"

"Is that necklace important to you?" Fluttershy asked.

"It protects me from the magic that transforms the students into monsters" Ninja started shifting from foot to foot "The magic takes advantage of emotional distress so it acts as a ward when I do feel a little distressed, but Nomicon said it will only work to a extent"

"I've never seen you wear it before" Twilight said

"That's because he doesn't wear it all the time" Nomicon explained, placing the necklace back on Ninja's neck "only when he is experiencing emotional distress"

"Is everything alright Ninja?" Fluttershy asked, the first to realize what Nomicon's words ment

"Don't want to talk about it" Ninja muttered glaring at Nomicon as he walk a distance away and smoke bombed away.

Nomicon looked to the spot where Ninja was once standing before turning to Twilight and the others.

"I think I know why you are here"

"You do?" all of them asked at once

"Yeah, Has Ninja told you about his friend Howard?" Nomicon asked keeping a neutral face

"Yeah he's mentioned him before" Rainbow Dash said.

"Well… Ninja and Howard recently had a pretty nasty fight" Nomicon hesitated "I'm not sure I should be telling you this, but the fight has Ninja pretty upset, he's not really angry anymore just depressed"

Twilight nodded "So we should meet Howard and see which two of us are meant to help while the others find the other one thats supposed to be here"

"How do you know there are two?" Discord asked

Twilight stared at him

"What the map never clarified how many there were maybe it just want more than two of us on this one"

"He has a point" Rainbow Dash agreed

"Okay we focus on Ninja and if another friendship problem comes up we'll split up" Twilight huffed

Nomicon smiled only for it to be replaced with a scowl when the roof door slammed open.

"NINJA! I know you're up here" A familiar chubby unicorn shouted as he walked into view, he glanced over all of them before settling on Nomicon "Book, where's Ninja?"

"Just left" Nomicon growled "what do you want with him?"

"He still owes me an apology"

"He owes you nothing if I remember correctly you were the one to start the fight" Nomicon growled, trying to not snap at Howard.

"So you  _were_ there!"

"Of course I was Ninja has to keep my book form on or near him at all times"

"I told him to  _not_  bring you" Howard growled, he turned around and started to head for the door only for Nomicon to block his path.

"And he respected you wishes to the best of his abilities" Nomicon stood straight as he could, not bothering to bend down to talk to the smaller pony, but he still made eye contact. Twilight wasn't surprised when all of Howard's confidence melted away and he shrunk back

"But Ninja has responsibilities and duties as my student and this cities protector and that's something you have to deal with, be happy he still makes time for you"

Twilight found herself shrinking back at the kirin's harsh tone, and Howard did to before he regained his confidence and snorted he pushed past Nomicon and stormed down the stairs.

"I think we found the other problem" Fluttershy whispered, to which Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Discord nodded

"Hmm?" Nomicon perked up "Did you say something?" even with his hostile mood gone and his normal patient and gentle one back, Fluttershy still shrank back.

"We think we found the other problem" Rainbow Dash spoke up for Fluttershy "I'm pretty sure the way you just dealt with Howard is not going to help them make up"

"Your just giving him more reasons for him to mad a Ninja and more things for him to pin on Ninja" Twilight finished for Rainbow.

Nomicon took some time to think about what they said "So I should stay out of it and let Ninja handle it?"

"Not exactly" Fluttershy said "You just need to handle Howard in a nicer way. The way your handling it comes off as you don't really like him"

"I don't" Nomicon huffed "I wasn't fond of him to begin with but I tolerated him, but now I want to teach the spoiled rich colt a lesson in treating others especially your friends"

"Well at least you are willing to put up with him when he's being decent" Fluttershy said

Nomicon nodded and sighed "I knew something like this was going to happen and I let it"

Before they others could respond a coral red Pegasus flew up to Nomicon. Twilight made the note that his wings matched his coat color and not his suit. He was wearing a similar suit to Ninja's, a few differences were boots that covered most of his hind legs, a headband instead of a scarf, and his sleeves cut off half way down his forelegs. The Pegasus whispered something in Nomicon's ear.

"Alright, go talk to him I'll be there in a minute" Nomicon said in a hushed tone, but still loud enough for the others to hear.

The pegasus nodded and flew off again, leaving them alone again.

"Uhh.. another apprentice of yours?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"An ex-apprentice of mine" Nomicon clarified "he graduated from my teachings a long time ago"

"Then what's he doing here?" Twilight asked

"One who focuses on the wrong thing, will lose what they truly need" Nomicon said in a cryptic tone

"Is that a riddle?!" Twilight asked "I love riddles!"

Her friends rolled their eyes while Nomicon simply blinked at her as she went over the riddle in her head trying to solve it.

"I got it! We need to focus on the Friendship problem and not your other apprentice, otherwise we might miss out on some important detail!" She looked up to Nomicon to see if she was right "Where did he go?"

"He walked away while you were solving his riddle" Discord said "I think he had something else to do"

"It didn't take me that long to solve"

"He walked away right after he said it"

Twilight gave him a deadpan look only to notice something on Discord's forehead

"What's on your forehead?"

"Do you like them?"Discord asked "Nomicon drew them there to help with my chaos sense, one will prevent the one using the chaos energy from detecting me and the other prevent my chaos sense from overloading" He pointed at the Japanese symbols "he said he would make me my own amulets like ninjas so I won't have to have them drawn on everytime"

"You know I never asked how you knew Nomicon?" Twilight said

"Perhaps we should focus more on the task on hand first" Discord grinned and summoned himself a pair of binoculars, looking through them he hummed.

"Discord we already found the problem" Rainbow Dash said, prompting Discord to look away from his binoculars revealing two fake black eyes.

Twilight sighed as Rainbow Dash laughed, Fluttershy tried to kindly tell Discord that he had something on his face, and Discord feigned ignorance to his own doing, so what they usually do.

"Guys!" she waited a bit to make sure she had their attention "Thank you, now Fluttershy do you think you can handle Nomicon and help him handle Howard a little better than he is now"

Fluttershy nodded

"Rainbow Dash, you can handle Ninja he needs a confidence boost by the sound of things"

"Then I'm your Pegasus"

"And Discord, you can talk to Howard I think you would get through to him better than anyone else, and No Reality bending to change his personality!"

"Okay fine" Discord huffed "Honestly I haven't done that sense I did it to you guys in the maze"

"Good" Twilight huffed "now for me, I'm going to look around and see if there's another piece to the puzzle we're missing, until then we'll work with what we got"

And with that, Discord and Fluttershy went down the stairs to follow Howard and presumably Nomicon and Rainbow Dash took to the sky to find the elusive Ninja, Twilight stood there for a moment watching her friends scatter before making her way to the stairs herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again  
> just some friend angst  
> head cannon, Discord can sense chaos  
> I didn't intend for this to be a two parter,but this is coming out longer than I expected so part two coming soon,


	18. Friendship Problem Part 2

**Friendship Problem Part 2**

Randy sat on a cloud still the Ninja doodling in a sketchbook he produced from his suit, he didn't want to return to class where he would have to face Howard so he decided he might as well skip. He started to add details to one of the doodles he liked, anything to keep his mind off it.

"Randy?"

Randy started at the unmistakable voice, he didn't even bother looking over to its source "hey Satoru"

The coral red pegasus landed next to him. "Are you alright?"

"From the fight?" yeah I'm fine just a few bruises"

"You know that wasn't what I was asking"

"Yeah I know" Randy sighed "I just don't want to talk about it"

"You don't have to"Satoru laid down next to Randy, he glanced at the sketchbook "You're a pretty good artist, you know that right?" he asked as a way to change the subject.

Randy used his wings to cover the sketchbook, his mask hiding his blush "I'm not that good"

Satoru laughed "You know you remind me of one of my brothers"

"Really?"

"Yeah, his name was Ren" Satoru smiled sadly "He was just as hyperactive and determined as you, but he had a shy side to him. He would mask his insecurities with his confidence"

"So I'm like him in personality"

"Not entirely, but he was an artist as well, probably the most emotionally expressive out of all of us"

"Isn't that a bad thing?"

" not really, because he let his emotions out in a healthy way instead of bottling them up like the rest of us he was able to withstand the sorcerer much better than any of us"

Randy looked down and away from Satoru and started doodling again.

"Randy, look at me" Satoru used his hoof to guide Randy to look at him"Don't bottle up your feelings, I learned that the hard way, it will backfire on you"

Randy put some thought into what Satoru said, nodded and went back to his doodle.

Satoru sighed "I wont force you to, but if you want to talk about it I'm here"

Randy absentmindedly nodded. The two sat in silence for a while Randy continued drawing while Satoru watched. They continued like this until a female voice called out

"There you are Ninja! I've been looking all over for you"

The two looked to Rainbow Dash as she approached, Randy put on a fake smile.

"Hey Rainbow, whats up?"

"The sky, and us since we're in it"

Randy found himself genuinely laughing at the silly response"

Rainbow Dash grinned and grabbed his hoof "Your coming with me"

Randy quickly stashed his sketchbook "Where?"

"Cloudbusting"

"Why?"

"You'll see"

"Can I come?" Satoru asked standing up

"Yeah the more ninjas the better, but I'm gonna need your name or something to call you"

"You can call me Satoru"

"Well nice to meet you Satoru I'm Rainbow Dash, now come on some clouds need to be busted"

Rainbow Dash took the lead as Randy and Satoru hung back

"You just gave her your real name! Why did you do that?" Randy asked

"I don't really have a identity outside this mask anymore"Satoru explained "And I been around enough to tell that a name like mine isn't common anymore, I'll just use a different name outside the mask if I ever take it off"

"Makes enough sense" Randy said "I just told her name my name was Ninja Heart, Ninja for short"

"Very original"

"You try coming up with a name right on the spot"

"We're here!" Rainbow Dash beamed as she showed them a large cluster of clouds she had gathered.

"We're gonna be hitting that?" Randy asked

"Yep" Rainbow Dash confirmed.

* * *

Discord growled as he followed the reluctant Howard

"I would like to talk to you Howard" Discord called out.

"Well I don't" Howard snapped back

Discord groaned "Twilight's gonna kill me" He snapped his fingers and Howard appeared in front of him, he was still looking behind him so he didn't realize right away but when he turned around he came face to face with the Draconequus.

"Gahh! How'd you do that!?"

Discord smirked "like this" He snapped his fingers once more and Teleported both of them to a empty room. Howard looked panicked he started running for the door. Discord sighed and locked it with a snap.

"What do you want from me!"

"To talk to you!" Discord growled "didn't you hear me the last five times!?"

"So what? You keep me in here till I listen to you?"

"Yes and I can do more than just what you've seen" Discord hissed "I could alter reality with a simple snap" He snapped his fingers for emphasis "So lis-"

"Don't erase me from reality!"

"What I'm not gonna-" Discord cut himself off "I won't if you listen, so are you gonna listen to me?"

Howard nodded

Discord took a deep breath to calm himself

"So I'm obliged to ask you what was the fight you and Ninja had about and why you're angry at him"

"This is what this is about?!"

"Yes" Discord huffed

Howard started a staring contest which lasted a couple moments before he gave in. "fine, Do you want the short or the long version"

"Which one covers all the key points I need to hear?"

"Long it is"

* * *

"So what do you do to calm down" Fluttershy asked Nomicon as they walked through the woods "And where are we going?"

"In order of asked, I like to meditate when I'm upset and we're going to my quiet place, where I go to meditate"

Fluttershy nodded and followed Nomicon the rest of way to a small clearing with a river next to it and a sun warmed rock in the center.

Fluttershy trotted over to the rock and sat down "This is your quiet place? Its nice"

"Thank you" Nomicon said "So where do we start?"

Fluttershy took some time to think "I think we need to work on not defaulting to intimidation when talking to him"

"What do you mean?"

"The way you stood and spoke when talking to him was quite intimidating" Fluttershy explained "As somepony whos taken quite a few confidence seminars I know you were most likely weren't trying to come off as that, but you have to keep you height difference in mind"

Nomicon thought for a bit "I guess I am quite taller than him"

Fluttershy smiled "yes you are, now standing straight as possible comes off as intimidating to some ponies, especially when it's paired with harsh words, and your height"

"So how do I come off as confident without scaring him?" Nomicon asked "cause if I bend down it comes off as submissive" He lowered his head to Fluttershy's height to prove his point.

Fluttershy had to agree with Nomicon, see the normally proud Kirin bending down to match her hight didn't fit him, it came off as submissive and like he lacked confidence. It may be her way to deal with stuff but it just didn't work with the proud and confident Nomicon.

"You don't have to bend down" She ensured Nomicon "Just keep yourself relaxed, you were tense when you talked to him, like you were gonna spring on him at any moment"

Nomicon followed her advice "Better?"

"Much better" Fluttershy smiled, happy that Nomicon was willing to work with her "I think the other two things we should work on are your word choice and tone"

Nomicon nodded.

* * *

Twilight walked out of the schools main doors, there had to be something she was missing. She looked up to the sky in thought, what did she know? Well she knew Ninja and his friend Howard had nasty fight, she knew Nomicon in his attempts to help Ninja and fix the problem was making it worse. There was something missing from the puzzle, she could feel it.

"But what" she muttered to herself

"Princess Twilight?"

Twilight snapped out of her thoughts as a white hoof was waved in her face. Following the hoof up back to its owner it changed to black half way up and lead to a very familiar set of glowing green eyes.

"Phantom?" Twilight asked confused "Aren't you supposed to be in Amity park"

"Not at the moment" Phantom grinned "I'm here visiting Ninja for a bit, along with a few friends" He guesterd to two other ponies standing aways from them.

One of them Twilight recognized as Sam the other she wasn't sure of.

"Well why don't you introduce me to them?"

Phantom beckoned for the two to come over.

"Hello Sam, Am I correct?" Twilight asked

Sam nodded

"Well then who are you?" Twilight asked turning to the other pony, a coffee brown unicorn with teal eyes, and a red beret covering his short, black mane.

"Tucker Foley, thats TF as in to- Mmmph!"

Phantom and Sam covered his mouth using a hoof and wing respectively

"Stop, just stop" Phantom sighed

Sam agreed with Phantom"She won't like it, trust me"

Twilight decided to ignore… whatever the heck that was "so you are here to see Ninja?"

"Yep" Phantom said, pulling away from Tucker "What about you? Not everyday you see a Princess here I bet"

Twilight took some time to explain the situation, and all three of the ponies listened.

"So Howard finally pushed Ninja off the edge?" Phantom asked "Well that took longer than I expected"

"You were aware of a rift between the two?" Twilight asked, slightly surprised.

The three shuffled and tried to form decent sentences.

"Well" Phantom beagin "We weren't entirely sure if there was a rift but considering how Howard and Ninja are, it doesn't surprise us that this happened"

"What do you mean by that?" Twilight asked

This time Tucker stated the explanation "Well Howard is… well... He's" He struggled to find words to describe the chubby unicorn in a relatively nice way.

"Rude, shallow, a pig, possessive, spoiled rich, never learned how to treat others" Sam bluntly finished for Tucker

"Don't forget manipulative" Tucker added throwing the idea of being even remotely nice to Howard out the window.

"And Ninja is, Kind, thoughtful, generous, relatively humble he does have his boastful moments and you know the town hero" Phantom finished "And despite being about 800 years of age, still kind of gullible, but I think Nomicon's whipping that out of him"

"So you don't think they would become friends naturally?" Twilight questioned

"I think Howard started the friendship and Ninja just went with it like he usually does" Tucker said

Twilight was confused and it must have been very apparent on her face cause Sam picked up where Tucker left off

"Ninja tends to let Howard do his own thing as long as it doesn't interfere with his training, but even than Howard will start a small fight about it and try to pull Ninja away from his duties"

"We felt like their friendship was slightly unhealthy when we first saw the two together" Phantom explained "But we weren't sure if we should interfere, It very obvious that Ninja relies on Howard for Emotional reasons and it's not exactly our place to tell him he should probably reevaluate his friendship"

Twilight nodded a little overwhelmed

"That and it's very obvious that Howard doesn't like Ninja hanging out with other ponies" Sam said

"Wait… What!?" Twilight immediately latched onto that bit of information.

"Howard's possiveness extends to his friends" Sam said "if the Ninja wants to hang out with us Howard will try to stop it and make it just him and Ninja"

"That's it!" Twilight shouted excitedly, surprising the three other ponies. She grabbed Phantoms hoof and started back towards the school

"You guys can help me" She said dragging the confused ghost with her, Sam and Tucker following behind.

"With what?" Sam asked

"This friendship problem" Twilight smiled "You're the missing piece"

* * *

Rainbow Dash watched as Ninja kicked a cloud with a 'Ninja kick' She snickered at his silly need to put ninja in front of every move or item he used. She had to admit his fighting skills were pretty awesome, much better than his flying skills that was. Ninja could fly that was obvious, but for someone known for their agility he was rather clumsy in the air, He flew in straight lines, avoiding complicated twists and turns, slowing down when he needed to turn sharply.

"You know for someone known for agility your not very good when it comes to aerial agility" She said as Ninja flailed to avoid the pegasus known as Satoru, though she was pretty sure the name was fake, Satoru easily changed his direction to avoid the crash.

"Hey! Not all of us can have a cutie mark based off of speed and flying" Ninja huffed "Besides it's not like Nomicon could teach me, he can't fly…. At least I don't think he can"

"You know I can teach you, right?" Satoru said

Ninja's face, or at least what was visible made a 'oh' look "I guess you can" he muttered sheepishly

"Well then come on!" Rainbow Dash cleared away the rest of the clouds, turing some of them into hoops and other obstacles and flew up into the open sky "Let's show you how to be awesome!"

"I thought I already was" Ninja retorted playfully

"Let's show you how to be Awesome in the air" Rainbow Dash corrected herself

"That's better"

* * *

Discord sighed as Howard ranted on about how Ninja's duties were ruining their fun time and how now that he had other friends he would cast him aside or something like that.

"Is this how Fluttershy felt when I was like this with Tree Hugger?" He asked himself

When Howard took a breath Discord covered the ponies mouth with his tail

"I think I heard enough" he said "and I honestly know how you feel"

Howard shoved away his tail and looked at him confused "You do?"

"Yes indeed I do" Discord said "A very dear friend of mine Fluttershy had a friend named Tree Hugger and oh boy did I  _despise_  her, I thought she was stealing Fluttershy away from me"

"So what did you do?"

"I tried to make her jealous with my own new friend, but neither really cared" Discord said "It ended with me threatening to throw Tree Hugger into another dimension"

"You can do that?"

"Of course I can" Discord huffed "I'm the Lord of Chaos"

Howard slowly started to back away.

"But anyways, Fluttershy said no to the dimension thing and she told me ponies can have more than one friend for different things and still make time for each one"

"But it won't be the same amount of time you started with" Howard said

"Oh pleases Fluttershy has lots of friends and she still hangs out with me just as often"

"And how often is that?"

"A tea party once or twice every week"

Howard laughed "Oh please you aren't best friends then,I hang out with Ninja every open second we have. Fluttershy obviously doesn't care enough about you if it's only twice a week"

"Don't you dare speak of Fluttershy in that way" Discord spat "You don't need to be attached at the hip to be besties, and for your information I'm the one who can only do twice a week, this has nothing to do with her"

"Then what makes you think your her best friend?" Howard challenged, forgetting the whole reality thing

"I know her likes, dislikes, what she fears the most, what makes her happy, I know just about everything about her, I'm just not a clingy possessive twit like you" Discord hissed, as he spoke the desks and other furniture in the room started to defy gravity.

"And if you speak of Fluttershy or any of my friends in that was ever again I will show you why I'm the Lord of Chaos"

Howard shrank away realizing his mistake, he looked fearfully at the angry draconequus.

The sound of the door slamming open made both of them look in the direction of it.

"Discord I know you need chaos to live, but please make sure this classroom looks exactly like it was when you came in here" Twilight said completely unaware of Discords previous threat "For Celestia's sake you frightened Howard by the looks of things, meet us in front of the school I think I have the answer to the problem" With what she needed to say said Twilight left the room still dragging Phantom with her.

Discord groaned and fixed the room with a single snap "Well come on, Twilight wants us outside" he said acting like nothing happened.

Howard slowly followed Discord out of the room, not eager to anger him again

* * *

Rainbow Dash grinned as Ninja flew around her stunt course, His loops and twists were shaky but they were still pretty good for his first few tries, Satoru flew next to him giving him pointers every now and then. When Ninja finished the last loop Rainbow Dash moved to applaud when someone behind her beat her to it.

"That's Pretty good Ninja" Twilight said "But I have somepony who's here to see you" She moved aside as Phantom flew up to them.

Ninja visible perked up and flew to meet phantom halfway. As the two shared greetings, Rainbow Dash went up to Twilight.

"How did you get him here so quickly?"

"I didn't he was already here to visit Ninja along with two others" Twilight explained "I ran into them and told them about the fight and they gave me some valuable information"

"Which was?"

"I'll tell you when I get everyone else together, meet me in front of the school as soon as possible" Twilight said "I just need to find Fluttershy and Nomicon and we're set"

Rainbow Dash nodded and watched as Twilight flew off into the woods below them

"Alright guys!" She called out "Twilight wants us to meet her in front of the school, lets bust the course and move out!"

The others nodded and together they removed the cloud course and flew off in the direction of the school.

* * *

"You're right this is relaxing" Fluttershy hummed as she mimicked the stretch Nomicon was performing to her best ability.

"Meditation and stretching are great ways to relax in my opinion" Nomicon said before he shifted into another stretch

"Especially when you can hear the sounds of the forest around you" Fluttershy added stretching out her hoof allowing a bird to land on it "How do you do Mr. Jay?"

The bird sang out a response to which Fluttershy nodded to.

"That's very good to hear"

"Wait" Nomicon said "You can talk to animals? I thought Ninja was just pulling my leg"

"Yes I can" Fluttershy responded "It's my special talent"

"Thats neat"

Fluttershy nodded and let the bird fly away "You think you can handle Howard a little better now?"

Nomicon nodded "I think I can"

"Well we better start heading back to the school" Fluttershy said "We're pretty secluded here"

Nomicon nodded and started walking back to the path.

When they reached the path they walked it for a few minutes before running into Twilight.

"There you guys are" She said "Can you come back to the school for a meeting?"

"We were already on our way to the school" Fluttershy said "I've done all I can with Nomicon, he actually worked with me unlike past ponies"

"That's great to hear" Twilight beamed, Nomicon started to get the idea that they didn't get much cooperation "Since you're on your way back I'll just walk with you"

"That's perfectly fine Twilight" Fluttershy smiled sweetly as Twilight settled next to Nomicon on the path.

* * *

Twilight looked at the ponies that were gathered around her. Nomicon looked relaxed and ready to try again with Howard, Ninja looked like his normal self again chatting with Phantom, Sam, and Tucker, then there was Howard, he glared at the three ponies talking to Ninja and was obviously still sour about the fight. Twilight didn't expect Discord to be perfect on his first try, but it seemed like his chat was the least effective.

The coral red pegasi from earlier creeped up next to Nomicon like he was trying not to be seen, which was strange because he seemed comfortable when he was with Rainbow Dash. Following his nervous glances he cast as he shared a hushed conversation with Nomicon, she saw he was nervous about Howard. After their conversation was done, the Pegasus slipped away and disappeared from Twilight's sight.

"Alright" she said getting everyone's attention "Ninja are you ready to talk about the fight or are you gonna smoke bomb again?"

Howard snickers only to be silenced by a glare from Discord

Ninja nodded "yeah, This got to be done"

Twilight took a deep breath to prepare herself "I talked to Phantom, Sam, and Tucker and they told me Howard can be quite possessive, is this true?"

Ninja looked down at the ground refusing to look at Howard, or anyone in the eyes "Yes" He said reluctantly "He tends to think He's the only one who can be my friend, and if I try to hangout with Phantom or anyone else, he inserts himself in and removes us from the mix making it me and him" He started to shift on his feet "since we're being honest here, I been neglecting to tell Howard when I'm with other friends so he can't insert himself-"

"Wait!" Howard interrupted "You've been hanging out with them" He pointed at Phantom, Sam, and Tucker "Without me knowing?!"

"You don't need to know what I do with every second of my life" Ninja snapped back "it's my life not yours!"

"Well I'm your best friend!" Howard started to stalk forward, Discord made a grab for him only to back off when Twilight held up hoof, silently telling him to leave it to the two friends. "And best friends don't keep secrets!"

"I'm a Ninja!" Ninja respond to Howard's approach by taking a few bold steps forward and standing straight and confidently "Secrets kind of come with the trade"

"Then why did you tell me about your identity?"

"Cause I trusted you! And I still do"

"Then why would you not tell me about hanging out with them"

The two friends were face to face with each other, with Howard trying to come off as intimidating standing as straight as he could with his neck stretched to be in Ninja's face as much as he could. Ninja was clearly ready to fight if things went that way, he stood in a fighting stance, his eyes narrowed and ears pulled back against his skull. Twilight could tell Nomicon was ready to break up the fight if it got physical.

"Cause you always ruin it for me and them!" Ninja yelled "You and them obviously don't get along so my solution was to be with you separately and take turns, but you always butt in and ruin it"

"Yeah, cause their taking away from our time"

"No...their...  _not!"_  Ninja shouted rearing up and stomping on the ground, as his hooves hit the ground he went to Ninja Rage Mode. His suit went from black with red accents to a fiery red orange with black accents, even his tail and visible coat went black. A new pair of wings replaced the old ones, they appeared to be made of a magical aura, and were the same red orange as his suit with black flight feathers, and not connected to his body, A horn made of the same aura spiraled from his forehead and ended in a fireball, his eyes were pure black with a small pinpoint of red orange serving as his pupil.

Everyone reeled back at the sudden transformation. Twilight couldn't help but be reminded of Nightmare Moon, even though she knew it was an active transformation by Ninja and he still had control, it was still scary for her.

Nomicon jumped in between Ninja and Howard, faceing Ninja he spoke in a soothing way to him, coaxing him out of Rage Mode. When Ninja was back to normal Nomicon pulled him into a gentle hug.

After a bit Ninja pushed away from Nomicon and faced Howard.

"Howard, as much I consider you my friend... best friend, I think if your gonna act the way you are to my other friends" He paused appearing to be trying to hold back tears "I think we...or… I need to take a break from our friendship and sort some things out"

Ninja bolted away from the group and into the school still holding back his emotions, Twilight and the others were ready to follow him when Nomicon stopped them

"Let him be, he needs time to himself"

"This is not what we wanted at all" Fluttershy whispered "What did we do wrong?"

"Nothing" Nomicon sighed "this was bound to happen with or without your intervention, you just speed it along"

Twilight turned to Howard, who was sitting still where they had left him

"Nomicon?" Howard whispered

Nomicon turned to him "yes"

"Is this what you meant when you said 'Those who are most possessive, often lose the most'?"

Nomicon nodded and looked to Discord, who saw it as his cue to jump in.

"This is similar to what I was telling you earlier" He said gently "You know with Tree Hugger and Fluttershy?"

"Could you tell me again?" Howard said "I wasn't listening the first time"

Discord sighed and told Howard the story all over again.

* * *

Randy sat down on top of the carp eye and cried. Part of him was telling him this was the worst spot to have an emotional breakdown, but he didn't care. Trusting the amulet he wore around his neck he let out all his pent up emotion, unaware that his distress had caught the attention of a certain chaos loving villain, locked up beneath the school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what the chapter is about, guess  
> Here's a concept sketch for Ninja Rage mode- https://snowstormbringer.deviantart.com/art/Ninja-Rage-694645871  
> Thanks for reading Have a nice day :)


	19. Stanked

**stanked**

Beneath Norrisville High the large form of a dragon slept curled up on itself, a rat sat in the center of its forehead sleeping as well. It was a dark moss green in color with sharp, dark green ridges that ran down the length of his back to the tip of its tail, its head sported two, sickly green horns that matched its underbelly. The scent of Distress caused the dragon's eyes to snap open, revealing blank white where the iris and pupil should be. It raised its head and yawned showing off its sharp, uneven teeth, yellow with age. The dragon uncurled itself revealing its snake like body and short legs, it was so big it barely fit on the small platform it was chained to when half uncurled. The dragon's tongue flicked out of its mouth and tasted the distress in the air.

"Hmmm, Do you smell that?" it asked the rat.

The rat squeaked and made its way to sit in between the Sorcerer's eyes

"Anger, sadness, betrayal, That's the scent of a friendship gone bad" The Sorcerer crooned "And something I can use" He grinned sinisterly and summoned up stank from the 'belt' that was around his midsection, the green fog made its way through the vents of the school before finding its victim.

* * *

Randy sat crying on the eye of the carp, unaware of the stank the was around him. When it made a move for him Randy's protection amulet sent out a pulse of magic that caused the stank to retreat back to its caster.

* * *

"Well that was fast" The Sorcerer said "even for Ninja"

The rat squeaked in agreement

* * *

Randy sniffed and wiped away his tears, taking a deep breath he stood up. He walked to the door of the school and peaked out. When he saw Howard talking to Discord he back away from the door, he didn't want to deal with him quite yet. Randy paced the room for a while, trying to think of something to do. He was once again obvious to the Sorcerer's stank as he tried to possess Randy a second time. Time and time again the Sorcerer tried to stank Randy and Randy's amulet protected him, all while Randy worried about his own troubles. Each time the amulet sent out a pulse it got dimmer, losing power. Eventually the amulet lost its power and the Sorcerer tried on last time.

* * *

Discord kept up his conversation with Howard until he felt a familiar surge in chaos energy. He jumped up and looked around catching everyone's attention

"Discord what's wrong" Twilight asked

Discord didn't get to answer, because a monster that looked like a mix between the Tengu and a dragon burst through the schools front entrance.

It had the body, tail and hind legs of a dragon and the head, wings, and forelegs of the Tengu. The monster was mainly black except for its spine, under belly and flight feathers, which were shades of red and the exposed bird legs of its forelegs, which were a yellow orange in color. The monster let out a bellowing roar that shook the ground and charged straight for Howard.

Rainbow Dash pulled Howard to safety just in time, carrying him into the sky.

"Where's Ninja?!" She shouted down to the others "And you!" She looked down at Howard "Stop struggling"

"I don't know where he is" Fluttershy shouted back "But he needs to hurry!"

"Umm guys" Twilight called out, she pointed at red markings that the monster possessed, ones that matched the markings on Ninja's suit "that is Ninja"

The stanked Ninja spread his wings and took to the air.

"If that's Ninja, then how do we un-monsterfi him?" Rainbow Dash called out moving out of the way of Monster Ninja's swipes.

"We gotta break the object he holds most dear" Nomicon Called out, running to keep up with his airborne student.

Rainbow Dash deposited Howard on the school roof "How will we know it his most valued possession?"

"It will be glowing green" Nomicon answered "The magic it will be possessed with is an unmistakable sickly green"

The ponies nodded and ran into the school to search for the object, but Twilight was stopped by Nomicon

"I need to check Ninja's home for the object" He said "Can you help Satoru with Ninja?" he pointed to the school roof where Ninja was landing.

Twilight nodded with a determined look on her face.

* * *

Howard slowly backed away from his stanked friend, the others were looking for his stanked item to free him but who was going to help him stay safe, and away from a angry Tengu dragon monster.

Stanked Randy approached him opening his mouth to reveal rows of sharp teeth. Howard gulped and continued to back away. Just as Randy leaped at him, a red cloth wrapped around Randy's mouth and snapped it shut a little too close for comfort for Howard.

A familiar pegasi jumped in between the monster and Howard, his headband wrapped around Randy's mouth and his bō staff drawn.

"First Ninja?" Howard asked disbelieved

"Now is not the time"Satoru said back, struggling to keep Randy restrained as Randy struggled to break himself free.

"I thought you would have died like 800 years ago?" Howard said

"Do me a favor...SHUT UP" Satoru snapped before yelping as Randy yanked his head up dragging Satoru with him. Satoru sung himself toward Randy,using the momentum of his swing he delivered a powerful kick to Randy's face. Randy shrieked and shook his head to rid himself of the pain, while he was doing this Satoru pushed Howard to the door that lead inside the school.

"He's after you, so I suggest you hide"

Howard gulped and ran down the stairs

"Preferable not in the school!" Satoru called out after Howard before turning his attention back to Randy. Satoru used his superior speed and agility to easily dodge stanked Randy's attacks, he used his bō staff to push Randy back away from the roof door by using precise swings at his face.

Randy roared and threw himself at Satoru pinning him to the ground.

Satoru held back Randy's head with his forelegs on the upper and lower half of Randy's mouth, using all his might to push back. He looked into Randy's glowing yellow eyes, all signs of their once friendly sapphire blue gone.

"Randy! this isn't you,you got to fight it" He shouted, even though he knows perfectly well that it wouldn't work "I don't want to fight you!"

Randy growled and pushed harder in a attempt to get to Satoru.

Satoru felt himself losing the battle for strength, and prepared to make a roll to escape.

A magenta magic wrapped around Randy's head and pulled him away from Satoru. Satoru jumped up and took to the sky to settle next to Twilight, who didn't seem to be having a challenge holding The Stanked Ninja's head.

"What do we do to fight him?" she asked "It's not like we can hurt him right?"

"We're gonna have to keep him busy intll the others can figure out a way to free him" Satoru said "This form is more resilient so as long as we don't use blades he should be okay"

Randy manage to swing his spined tail at the two causing both of them to dive in separate direction, Twilight losing enough concentration to let him escape her magical grasp.

"What are the chances of you being able to hold his entire body?" Satoru asked dodging a swing from Randy's talons

"Not great" Twilight responded, flying out of range of Randy's limbs "I'm not  _that_  strong"

"You're an alicorn"

"Yeah, but I'm not exactly moving the sun or moon on a daily basis"

"Fair point" Satoru said, swooping beneath Randy's body, confusing him "could you hold his head if I find a way to hold down the rest of him?"

Twilight nodded

Satoru flew a small distance from Randy before a Idea struck him "I need to get him off the roof and on the ground"

"How you gonna do that?" Twilight asked.

"Like this" Satoru ran to the edge of the roof jumping off, Randy followed him "Sorry Randy, but this needs to be done" He whispered as he flew above Randy and wacked one of his wings.

Randy lost his balance and fell to the ground, causing it to shake.

A crowd had form since the beginning of the battle and they moved back a bit when Randy hit the ground.

"Get the bystanders to safety" Satoru said bluntly to Twilight "I'll handel R-Ninja"

Twilight flew down to the crowd and started to usher them away, giving them a general explanation of the situation, keeping the fact that Ninja was the monster hidden. The crowd listened to her and started to leave the area, some a little more hesitant to do so than others.

While Twilight took care of the bystanders, Satoru landed in front of Randy and started to whisper a spell

"Stay grounded, do not waver, The dirt itself will pay you a favor,To stop your foes and hold them back, Harness the soil for an Earth Attack. Now before my allies give up all hope, please turn the grass to rope"

Stanked Randy shrieked as the grass around him grew and twisted together making ropes that tied him down, he struggled against the bonds to no avail.

Twilight looked on in awe "how did you do that?"

"I cast a spell'

"But you're a pegasi"

"Ninja secret" Satoru grinned as Twilight huffed

"Now what?" she asked

"Now all we got to do it keep him tied up and hope the others find the item" Satoru said

* * *

The others had scoured the school from head to toe but found nothing. Phantom had taken to phasing into the lockers, Rainbow Dash bolted from room to room using her speed to search as fast and efficiently as possible, with Fluttershy, Sam, and Tucker looking over the rooms she had already looked over as a just in case. Discord stood over the eye of the carp, he could tell this was were all the chaos was coming from. He briefly wondered if he could stop it at the source, but reminded himself what Nomicon had said about this Sorcerer, destructive and ruthless.

"I certainly hope you don't plan on going down there" Nomicon said entering the school "I couldn't find anything at Ninja's house, so how's your luck here?"

'Not very good" Discord sighed "Their looking over the school a second time to be safe"

'Alright plan B" Nomicon sighed "Howard get out of that locker and come here"

A very unsure Howard slowly made his way out of his hiding spot "How did you know I was there?"

"Cause Lockers aren't supposed to bulge like that" Nomicon said off handedly

"What do I have to do with this plan B?" Howard asked.

"You know how Ninja sometimes has to find a certain pony and convince them to apologize for what caused their friend to be stanked?"

"Yeah…."

"Well it looks like you owe Ninja a apologie"

Howard stiffend "For what?"

"For a lot" Nomicon said remaining surprisingly calm through the conversation.

Howard sighed and nodded, the sound of Randy's shrieks could be heard from outside. Unsurely He started to follow the noise.

"Oh Howard" Nomicon called out "I think using his real name will work better"

Howard nodded and picked up his pace.

Discord and Nomicon followed him outside but stayed a distance away from him, outside they saw a stanked Ninja tied to the ground and Satoru and Twilight discussing something. Satoru ushered Twilight away when he got the idea of what was going in, leaving Howard to Randy.

"Randy?" Howard started slowly "I'm sorry" He observed the reaction of the monster sitting in front of him, Randy had stopped struggling and seemed to be listing. Howard swallowed his pride "I'm sorry for all the things I said about and did to, you, Nomicon, and your other friends. It's just ever since you became the Ninja things have been changing, and I don't like it. You've been so dedicated to this new responsibility and you've made new friends, it felt like I was being left behind" Howard took a shaky breath, trying to hold back his tears "And I didn't like that, I just wanted things to be the way they were before you were chosen. I mean you had way more in common with Danny with the whole hero thing so of course you would spend more time with him" Howard was crying by this point "Randy you're my only friend, if you leave me behind I will have no one and that's what I was scared of, I didn't mean to drive you away or hurt you… I just didn't know what else to do"

Howard sat looking at the ground letting his tears roll off his face, jumping when a hoof wrapped around him pulling him into a hug.

"You could have just told me how you felt" Randy said, "We're best friends, I wouldn't have judged"

The two sat there hugging for what seemed like forever.

* * *

Twilight watched as the two friends hugged, a familiar sound and her cutie mark flashing was enough to tell her that her job here was done.

The others exited the school, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash must have noticed their cutie marks flashing too cause they made their way to her to share a hoof bump Discord pulling all of them into a hug. The four watched as Phantom, Sam, and Tucker practically tackled Ninja into a hug, Howard reluctantly backing off to let them.

"Well I think our job here is done" She stated proudly "Let's go home"

The others nodded.

* * *

Randy grinned as his friends hugged him, his memory was a bit fuzzy but he had an idea what had just happened. His suit had miraculously managed to stay in one piece only suffering large rips on his back and hooves, nothing it couldn't fix itself. As his friends pulled away he noticed Howard hanging back

"Hey uh…" Howard started "If you want to spend the week with Danny and company, I won't intervene. I guess you won't always be around to hang so… I should get used to that"

"Howard, I meant it when I said we were best friends, but maybe we both need sometime to figure out where this friendship is going"

"Yeah…"

The two shared an awkward pause before Howard spoke up

"Game Hole Monday when they go home?"

"Sure"

Nomicon and Satoru rolled their eyes as the others laughed.

* * *

The Sorcerer growled as his Stank returned to him "You may have defeated my monster again Ninja, but mark my words I will get out of this god forsaken hole"

The rat squeaked and shook it's paw in a vengeful manner.

"This is my moment not yours" The Sorcerer hissed causing the rat to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors notes
> 
> like half this chapter was written while I was sick and loopy off of cold medicine.
> 
> The original plan for the sorcerer was for him to be pony but he sounds so more frighting and awesome as a dragon
> 
> For Randy's stanked form, it's kind of like a griffin but with a Dragon and a Tengu. Not much I can really think to say about it.
> 
> Thank you for reading, have a nice day :)


	20. Markings

**Markings**

Satoru could still remember the first time he meet Randy. As he stood there dangling the smaller pony over the Sorcerer’s prison, he for a brief second had thought somehow one of his brothers had survived the Sorcerer without him knowing. But there was a few flaws with that thought, one he was a earth pony rather than a pegasus, and two His coat and mane colors were wrong. His family had coat colors ranging from off white to his coral red, but never a peach. The same went for the strange new Ninja’s visible mane color, his was a bright purple, Satoru’s family had always had mane colors ranging from black to brown and a few off whites and reds.

Satoru had been ready to accuse Randy for stealing one of his brothers mask, But then the weird talk about time travel started, and the Sorcerer gaining the Tengu Eye. In the end Randy had stayed and fought when he gave up, of course he changed his mind and returned to deal the finishing blow that threw the Sorcerer into his prison.  But Randy had willingly destroyed his mask in order to return the Tengu to its stone, showing his face and another certain identity revealing part of him. He was a blank flank but his back was decorated with a lighter than his mane purple splatter like somepony had spilt some kind of liquid on him, the same purple tipped his ears and made a appearance as a small dot on his muzzle. Satoru had never seen markings before and he was immediately fascinated by Randy’s, poking them to make sure they weren't a spilt liquid Randy had not washed off due to lack of time or something.

Randy had found his curiosity funny and told him they were something he was born with and they were indeed part of him.

Since then Satoru had taken reasdence in the Nomicon so he could help train the next Ninja’s in line to fight the Sorcerer.  Not a lot of them had markings only a small hoof full of the hundreds of Ninjas he had trained had them, most of them were small dots that decorated the face and went by the name of freckles. There was that one Ninja that possessed stripes though, he was interesting one, spoke in rhyme more often than Nomicon or himself. 

By the time he had come to be in the possession of Randy, he had come to fear his initial reaction to Randy’s markings may have offended Randy. It was obvious that markings were not common and Satoru witnessed the relentless bullying Randy received for having them. Randy’s self conscientious about the markings grew and he started to hide them, first with a hoodie, then he started asking his Mothers if covering the ones on his face with makeup was possible, they both had said no and that he shouldn’t be ashamed of his markings. Satoru watched as Randy grew to hate his markings, refusing to remove his hoodie even at home. He wanted to speak to Him but Nomicon kept saying ‘wait for him to meet you in the past first’ 

Finally the day came he watched as Randy left the tour bus, foregoing his hoodie for the first time in a while just because it got stuck on a loose bolt, his mission as the Ninja was more important than keeping his markings covered.

Satoru watched the events of the day he knew all so well unfold again, till he got to the moment Randy destroyed his mask to return the Tengu. He watched Randy’s face as his past self expressed his curiosity for Randy’s markings. First there was hurt, then it seemed to soften when he saw that Satoru had no intention to tease him about them, but Satoru could not be sure if it was fake.

Satoru waited for Randy to be alone in his room before revealing himself to Randy. The smaller pony had shrunk back a bit a first but seemed to brighten up when he recognized him. The two talked for awhile Satoru trying to apologize for his actions towards Randy’s markings, but Randy was having none of it insisting he was okay.

Satoru felt relieved as Randy started to become confident in his markings once more.  It didn’t happen until he meet Danny, Danny possessed boot markings on all four of his legs in his ghost form. Which is how the two first meet, the reveal of their identities didn’t happen until a little later on. Seeing another pony with markings seemed enough to encourage Randy and let him know he wasn’t alone. He still wore his hoodie to school or when he was in public but he removed it when he was at home, But hey... it was progress.

* * *

 

“I really don’t understand why other ponies are so against your markings” Satoru said gently applying an ice pack to a bruise Randy had received from Bash, the stepson of Mcfist.

“Why do you like my markings so much?” Randy asked 

Satoru shrugged “their unique and different” He said “Something I've never seen before”

“I agree with Satoru” Danny said, Laying on top of Randy in ghost form using his natural cold to act as large ice pack for the large bruise that had formed on Randy’s back “I mean they look real cool” He added looking at his own markings.

“Yeah, yours do” Randy snorted “They make it look like you’re wearing a fancy superhero suit” He sighed and shifted “Mine makes it look like somepony spilled juice on me and it stained” 

“Phantom’s also draw ponies away from his actual identity due you not having them in his normal form” Sam added from the floor where she sat playing games with Tucker

“True” Danny added “But this is about Randy”

“It makes you unique” Tucker said 

“Already said” everyone else in the room said at once

“Randy” Nomicon started “Markings can indeaded be an advantage in the case of Danny, but they can also be a disadvantage or neither”

“What’s he talking about?” Tucker whispered 

“I mean like Sam said Danny’s markings give him a advantage in the secret identity department” Nomicon said “But they can also reveal a identity or remain neutral and do nothing to further any side”

“Yeah” Randy agreed “Mine could reveal my identity, or at least the one on my muzzle” Randy sulked for a bit before he came up with an idea “What if I used art of disguise to cover it?”

“Absolutely NOT” Nomicon and Satoru both said at once. “You remember what happened last time” Nomicon finished 

“Yeah but that was my mane and I need to practice” Randy whined “Just when I’m the Ninja?”  He gave a pleading look “Please”

Nomicon groaned “Fine” 

Randy perked up

“BUT! Before you do it anywhere near the public eye you will practice it till perfection to avoid another incident like the last one” Nomicon said in a strict tone “Do I make myself clear?”

Randy nodded enthusiastically 

“Alright” Satoru grinned “We add it to your training routine tomorrow”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small chapter, not much compared to the last one. I'm planning for the next few chapters to be like this, just small and simple then build back up to something big again.
> 
> Just going to clarify now that this as well as the next one take place when Danny and CO are over for the week.
> 
> also I've reread a few chapters and noticed a few small grammar mistakes, if you spot some please let me know so I can fix it
> 
> Thank you for reading
> 
> Have a nice day :)


	21. Training Session and Bats

**Training session and Bats**

Heidi sighed and adjusted her camera "are you sure they're nested here?" She asked the pony leading here through the woods.

"Yes, we need to get to their nesting sight before Moonrise or we'll miss them" The cheery bat pony called back, fixing his top hat.

"Julian, these bats better be as rare as you're telling me they are" Heidi growled. Ahead of her Julian reached a clearing only to quickly duck down.

"There is a very unexpected visitor in the bats nesting sight" he whispered.

Heidi crept up next to him and peaked over her cover.

The Ninja stood in the clearing, strangely enough blindfolded.

"Uhh… Nomicon?" He called out "Where are we?"

"Your newest training exercise" Nomicon said calmly coming into view holding a apple

"That didn't answer my question"

Nomicon sighed and placed the apple on Ninja's head.

"What's that?"

Nomicon said nothing but nodded of to someone out of view. A ninja ring whizzed towards the apple, despite being blindfolded Ninja yelped and ducked letting the ring embed itself in the tree behind him.

"So your gonna throw stuff at me?" Ninja asked "I would really like to know what you want me to do"

"Simple" Nomicon said "You have to doge the rings and keep the apple on your head from being sliced"

"Okay, sounds doable enough" Ninja said getting in a ready position.

Nomicon smirked and trotted over to where Heidi and Julian were hidden, sitting down in front of their cover. As soon as Nomicon was out of the way two rings were thrown at once from two separate directions. Ninja effortlessly dodged the rings by rolling backwards, somehow keeping the apple on his head. The rings kept coming, with the most being thrown at once being five. Ninja kept dodging and took to throwing the apple in the air to let it soar over the thrown disks and bouncing it to other parts of his body, but always returning it to his head. It became obvious that Ninja was being cocky and was teasing the ones throwing the rings.

After while Nomicon held up a hoof and the throwers stopped, Ninja picked up on this and stood tense his ears revolving around trying to pick up a sound. At first Heidi thought they were done but then a Pegasus wearing a similar suit to Ninja's charged him from out of view, he activated some spikes that were hidden in his fore hoof's glove and swiped at the apple. Somehow, Ninja pick up on this and blocked the attack just in time, the two continued to spar with the Pegasus play offensive and Ninja being defensive. While watching a couple things became obvious to Heidi, one just how small Ninja actually was, she was aware the he was on the small side but now she could compare him to a full grown pony and Ninja only come up to the Pegasus's shoulders. Another was the Pegasus appeared to be more experienced than Ninja, he was very slowly overpowering Ninja, though that could have been because he wasn't blindfolded. Ninja had taken to standing on his hind legs keeping his forelegs ready to block whatever the Pegasus sent his way, The Pegasus took advantage of this and swept Ninja's legs from under him grabbing the apple as Ninja hit the ground. Right before he could cut the apple with his hoof spikes Ninja delivered a strong kick right to his chin, causing him to drop the apple. Ninja caught the apple with his muzzle and bounced it back up to his head, after that he backed up from the Pegasus and stood in a ready stance ears perked,. The Pegasus shook his head in order to clear it and recover from the hit before reengaging Ninja in the sparring match. Ninja had returned to standing on his hind legs once again, but had learned from his past mistake and kept them further apart. So when the Pegasus tried to sweep his legs once more he only took one leg, which ninja used to kick him.

Once again Nomicon nodded of to somepony out of view and the rings started up again. Ninja was obviously overwhelmed his ears swiveled around like crazy and despite being blindfolded his head jerked around as if trying to find the source of the rings, all while trying to determine the Pegasus's next move and react accordingly. It didn't take long before a Ninja ring hit the apple.

"HUZZAH! TIS I WHO IS VICTORIOUS!"

As soon as it was declared he had last the challenge Ninja collapsed to the ground and started panting heavily. The Pegasus shook his head and removed the blindfold for Ninja.

"Thanks Satoru"

Four other ponies made their way into view from the surrounding bushes, including a giddy Princess of the night.

"I can't believe I actually hit the apple!" She said "I had no idea how to throw those things"

"Great job Your Highness" Ninja panted

"There is no need for such formalities here, I'm your guest" Luna said waving a hoof dismissively before glancing at the sky "But it does look like we finished just in time, my sisters sun is setting so it is time for my moon to rise"

As Luna took to the sky the three other ponies started to talk to Ninja, a purple pegasus, a brown colored Unicorn and the easily recognized and debated hero of Amity Park.

"Dude, that was awesome!" Phantom said "Can I borrow Nomicon for like…. forever if that's what training with him leads to?"

"I will have to deny that Phantom" Nomicon huffed, not aware that the comment was meant as a joke "But you're more than welcome to join us for the remainder of the session"

Just then Julian stood up and walked into the clearing "I don't mean to interrupt, but you're in the nesting sight of a very rare type of bat" he said "Your training could scare it away, so would it be to much to ask if you could do it somewhere else?" his voice trailed off as he finished.

"Bats?" Ninja asked only to yelp as the apple was snatched off his head, The culprit being a bat. It looked like a standard bat except it fur was pale and glossy, reflecting the moonlight making it look pure white. It landed in a nearby tree and started eating the apple, taking small nibbling bites.

Heidi worked up the confidence to leave her hiding spot, starting a new recording to hide the fact that she recorded the training that happened before hand.

"It's beautiful" The purple pegasus stated moving closer to get a better look "We definitely don't want to scare it away, we'll move" She shot a glare towards Nomicon and Ninja as she finished as if saying that that her word was final.

"Did I miss something?" Princess Luna asked as she returned from raising the moon, she noticed a very giddy Julian "Oh, hello"

Julian giggled "Hello beautiful night Princess, I'm Julian" he said bowing

Luna gave a unsure glance towards Ninja

"He's always like this" Ninja said offhandly

"So what are you doing here, Julian?" Luna asked

"I'm here to record the bat colony that lives here" Julian stated excitedly "That way Mcfist wont log this place for his newest business idea"

"He wants to do what!" The purple pegasus shouted, angered at the idea of the forest being cleared.

Before she could rant about the topic the unicorn and Phantom stopped her

"Yeah we get it" Phantom said "Business coprates have no care for nature, aren't they happy with what they have? Blah blah blah this could go on for a while"

Luna chuckled at the three "Perhaps you would like some help?"

"With what?" Heidi asked

"The bats"

Julian gasped "You will film them with me?"

"Of course" Luna said"these bats are incredibly rare, I haven't seen them in years. If a colony lives here the land must be protected"

Around them the rest of the bats were waking up and flying around, one of the older ones of the colony landed on Lunas head nibbling her crown experimentally

"That's not food" Luna chuckled

"Ironically enough I named that one Luna" Julian said offering the bat some fruit from his saddlebag "After you"

"AWWWW that's the sweetest thing" Luna said looking like she was holding back tears, of joy of course.

"Well we'll leave you to filming" Nomicon said starting to usher the others away from the clearing "I must apologize for training here and potentially scaring them off, we were not aware they were here. We will host our training somewhere else for now on."

"It's okay" Julian said "Sorry for asking you to move "I just-"

"Want to protect the bats" Ninja finished for him "We can understand that, keep going and good luck with getting this land protected, But I think with Princess Luna on your side that will be easy"

* * *

 

As Randy walked away from the clearing with The others he could hear Heidi directing Julian and Luna where to stand to get the best lighting.

"You think she filmed us training?" He asked

"I know so" Nomicon said "I sat right in front of them, there's a small chance she could post it. But I think she'll rethink it soon enough"

Randy shuddered at Nomicon's tone before something else clicked in his head

"We don't usually train there, why were we there tonight"

Nomicon grinned

"What you do?" Satoru cut in

"Luna had sent me a few letters saying she was starting to feel like she wasn't being appreciated for what she was doing again"

"Last time that happened we got Nightmare Moon" Randy interjected worriedly

"I know" Nomicon said "So when I overheard Julian talking about those bats with Heidi I asked Luna if she would like to join us for some night time training and I found out where the bat colony was. Now Luna knows there are ponies who do appreciate what she does, Julian has somepony to help him save the bats who is just as invested, and Mcfist can't claim that part of the woods"

"Wow" Tucker said "talk about two birds one stone"

"More like three birds, one stone" Danny corrected.

The five ponies laughed as they headed for their next training location.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some practice for later fight scenes
> 
> I like to think Nomicon would push his students to their limit during their training, no such thing as easy when Nomicon's the one controlling it.
> 
> I spent a while trying to decide what kind of pony Julian would be, in the end I just had to make him a bat pony it's always how I envisioned him in the pony universe. 
> 
> I don't have a name for the bats quite yet, probably moonlit bat or Luna's bat or something like that
> 
> Thank you for reading 
> 
> Have a nice day :)


	22. Sketchbook

**Sketchbook**

Randy had always been very protective of his sketchbook, never really letting ponies see what was in it. Only Howard and Satoru had managed to get a few lucky looks at laid within. He enjoyed drawing simple things, flowers, landscapes, his fellow classmates, and recreating the things he saw in the Nomicon. Ever since he became the Ninja he learned to observe his surroundings and He liked to add the small details and complex designs that he saw and most ponies overlooked to his art. At the moment he was in the park trying to draw a kimono he saw in Nomicon from memory, it was coming out more intricate and detailed than Randy anticipated, he liked that. He jumped a little as his phone rang, looking over he saw it was Howard so he put the phone on speaker.

"Your on speaker Howard" Randy said around the pencil in his mouth

"Where are you?" Howard asked.

"The park, why do you ask" Randy said mindlessly adding to his drawing

"I went over to your house to see if your open for some video games and you weren't there"

"This is what texting is for Howard" Randy snickered "I'll be there in a few minutes"

Randy hung up before Howard could respond, tucked his pencil behind his ear, and grabbed his sketchbook. Holding it close to his body, he walked with his three open legs. Randy made his way home, halfway home he looked up to the sky to see the local weather pegasi clearing the sky, still walking he watched as they burst the clouds mainly focusing on how the clouds dissipated upon a simple kick from the pegasi.

"How does that even work?" He wondered out loud "You can stand on a cloud without it breaking but when you kick it it disappears?"

Not really pay attention to what was happening in front of him Randy didn't hear the sound of another pony ahead of him running in his direction. He snapped back to reality when he and the pony collided, dropping his sketchbook in the process.

"Oh I'm so sorry darling" A familiar voice said "I was wasn't watching where I was going" Rarity offered Randy a hoof to help him up which he accepted.

"It's not a problem" he laughed "I wasn't watching either" He picked up his sketchbook.

"Oh, a fellow artist I see" Rarity said picking up her own sketchbook "Now as much as I'd love to talk I'm running late for something so I apologize again for running into you bye bye"

Randy watched as Rarity waved down a passing taxi and jumped on, shaking his head he continued his way home.

* * *

 

"So what were you doing in the park anyways?" Howard asked, the two were a ways into their game session and by this time Randy had all but forgotten about his run in with Rarity.

"Drawing, why do you ask?"

"Just curious, Can I see what you drew?"

"I would prefer you didn't" Randy said "I'm not that good"

"I don't care if you're good or not" Howard snorted, using his magic to grab Randy's sketchbook from the desk where it sat.

"Howard" Randy whined making a grab for it but Howard pulled it out of his reach, Damn unicorn magic.

"I just want to see what my best friend drew" Howard said opening the book to a random page a confused look crossed his face. "You know I didn't expect you of all ponies to be in to dress design"

"What?" Randy asked, his attempts to grab the book away from Howard stopped as he peeked over Howard's shoulder. Howard could see the confusion on his friends face melt into worry and a bit of fear.

"That's... not my sketchbook" Randy said before something clicked "I must have gotten mine mixed up with Rarity's!"

"Who's Rarity?"

"She's somepony I meet as the Ninja" He said offhandedly only to get a confused look from Howard "a friend of Twilight"

"Oh, were you with her in the park?"

Randy sighed and grabbed the sketchbook "Look, just continue play Grave Puncher if you want, I'm going to at least try to find where she's staying and try to return this"

"Fine"

Randy grabbed his mask leaving his room through the window shortly after. He made his way to one of the few hotels that were in Norrisville, all owned by Mcfist. Upon arriving he looked at the huge building

"You know Randy, there is a much easier way to do this" He said to himself "Just call and ask if she's staying here Mcfist can't recognize you voice over the phone"

He pulled out his phone and looked up the number to the hotel, right before he hit call he put away his phone

"I wonder what the chances of her staying in the Royal Suite are?" he mutter to himself once more as he took to the sky to reach the Royal Suite's balcony.

* * *

 

Mcfist sat at his desk, plotting ways to unmask and destroy the Ninja, well more like Viceroy was and he was claiming them as his.

"We could create little robots with cameras in order to record all the ponies and document those with markings"

"Oh I like that plan, start working on my plan"

Viceroy sighed and started to write down some notes when Mcfists phone rang.

Micfist pressed the intercom button "WHAT?"

"Mr. Micfist there's a Ninja on line one fo-"

Before the robo ape could finish Micfist hung up and nearly broke his phone answering line one.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT NINJA!" He screamed into the Mic.

"I'm not here to fight Mcfist" Ninja sighed from over the phone "I just want to-"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?!"

"If you let me spea-"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

"Are you going to le-"

"WHAT...DO...YOU...WANT?!"

Sensing that the conversation wasn't going anywhere soon, Viceroy extended his hoof "May I sir?"

Micfist stared at him before begrudgingly backing up from the phone "Go ahead and good luck, He's being difficult"

Viceroy situated himself in front of the phone "This is Viceroy speaking" He said

"Finally somepony who's somewhat sane" Ninja said

"Your on speaker Ninja" Viceroy said matter of factly

"Okay cool" Ninja said "Look I just want to Know if there's a Rarity staying at any of your hotels? I'm trying to return an item she dropped, It looks important. Then I'll be out of your manes"

"Shouldn't you be doing more heroic things than returning a lost item?" Viceroy asked as he got on Mcfist's computer and started looking at all the hotel bookings.

"Look I can only defeat as many robots and monsters you and the Sorcerer send at me" Ninja huffed "Being a hero is also being compassionate and caring and blah blah blah" The last bit sounded like he was slightly mimicking someone.

"Uh huh" Viceroy nodded "Well it looks like we do have a Rarity staying in our Mcsuite Hotel"

"Okay what room?"

Mcfist jumped back into the conversation just as Viceroy was about to answer "We're not going to just let you in one of MY hotels" He growled "We'll send a robo ape to pick it up and deliver it"

"Okay fine by me" Ninja huffed "I'm outside the Mcsuite Hotel, should be easy for you to find me for once"

Viceroy had to hold back his laughter as he sent orders to a Robo ape as Micfist let out a string of curses into the phone.

* * *

 

Rarity was panicked, somehow she had mixed up her design book for some other pony's sketchbook. She had never been more thankful for modern technology as She talk to her friends over the phone.

"It's got to belong to that pony I ran into at the park" She said as she paced her room "I'm just lucky the meeting with Mrs. Mcfist was called off due to the school calling her to discuss something to do with her son"

"Rarity you need to calm down" Twilight said "You sure there is no name on it?"

"Yes Twilight I'm sure" Rarity confirmed " I checked twice"

"Is your name on your Sketchbook?"

"If you count the fact that I sign all my works, yes"

"Well if it's in that calligraphy thing I seriously doubt they will be able to read it" Rainbow Dash cut in

"Rainbow Dash, this is serious" Rarity snapped into the phone "I have to present my design to Mrs. Mcfist first thing tomorrow, and that said design is in my book"

"Can't you just redraw it?" AppleJack asked

"Yes AppleJack that is a possibility, but sometimes one can not recreate such inspiration"

"Well, I'm sure the other pony has realized he has your book" Fluttershy said

"Yeah" Pinkie Pie cut in "I'm pretty sure they're trying to return it right now"

"Pinkie even if they were trying to return it, they would have no idea if I'm from here or not" Rarity sighed "Norrisville is huge, where would they start?"

Rarity was interrupted by a knock at her door

"Miss. Rarity?"

Rarity cringed at the synthetic voice "Yes?"

"A pony dropped something off for you"

"Hmm That's strange" Rarity said "I do not remember ordering anything" She walked over to the door and opened it . the robo ape on the other side simply extended his hand to offer her a simple sketchbook

"Is that my Design book?" Rarity used her magic to grab the book and flip through it, immediately recognizing her own work "It is!" She squealed "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She hugged the robot and retreated into her room.

"Not a problem Miss. Rarity, have a nice night"

Before he left Rarity returned with her bit pouch "here, treat yourself to… whatever you robots do" She handed him a few bits "And may I ask who brought it in?"

"Thank you Miss. Rarity" The robo ape said "As for who brought your book in, I'm not quite sure I was simply asked to take the book and give it to you"

Rarity nodded "Well good night" She said before closing her door, once her door was closed she shuddered "Would it hurt for them to hire some pony staff?" She muttered to herself.

She picked up her phone realizing she didn't hang up and positioned it back next to her ear

"I'm back" She said "And It turns out Pinkie was right, The pony just managed to return my design book"

"Did you return his?" Pinkie asked

"Sadly no" Rarity said "He had the hotel staff bring it up"

"Aww" Pinkie groaned "You could have been art buddies"

"Pinkie the pony looked like he was still in high school" Rarity sighed Mindlessly grabbing Randy's sketchbook "Though from the quick glance of his art that I saw he has quite the eye for detail"

"So you looked through his art?" Applejack asked

"Oh, Heavens no!" Rarity huffed placing the book on the table next to her "it's rude to look into another artist's book without permission, I opened it thinking it was mine and saw a bit of his art"

"That makes sense" Twilight said "Well I'm glad you got your book back, but it's late and I got a lot to do tomorrow, so I'm off to bed"

The rest shared a similar agreement to going to bed.

"Well I got a few more things to do, but I won't keep you from your sleep" Rarity said "So good night and I talk to you either tomorrow or when I get home"

After they shared their goodbyes and ended their call Rarity put the phone back in her bag along with her design book. She glanced over at Randy's sketchbook and bit her lip, she had to admit she was a little tempted to take another look at the art inside even if she knew it was rude. She decided to make some final touch ups on her design, her pencil hovered over the paper as she stared blankly at the paper. Her mind and gaze kept going back to the sketchbook that sat on her bedside table, the more she tried to not focus on it the more her mind went back to it until she growled in frustration.

"Why would he not come up and claim his own sketchbook?" She asked herself "I'm absolutely sure he would have wanted it back, Why would he not try to get it back?"

She grabbed Randy's sketchbook of the table and held it in front of her as if she was talking to it. She was interrupted by someone knocking on her Balcony door, looking in it'd direction she saw a familiar black and red clad hero,and friend. Walking over to the door she opened it and dragged Ninja in.

"Just in time, I need to talk to somepony and all my other friends are in ponyville asleep"

Ninja laughed nervously "I'm just here to check if you got your sketchbook back"

Rarity stopped in her tracks and turned to face him "You're the one who returned it?"

"Ninja laughed nervously again "yeah, who did you think it was?"

"The pony who owned this one" Rarity said grabbing Randy's sketchbook off her bed where she had dropped it.

Ninja took it from her magical grasp and examined it, Rarity started as he nonchalantly opened the cover and looked inside before flipping to a random page.

"I'm not seeing a name or any type of signature"

"I know I checked" Rarity said "But how did you do that so…nonchalantly?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I personally find it rude to look into another's personal items without permission, so I kind of got myself worked up over checking for names of signatures" Rarity trailed off near the end of her sentence.

Ninja stiffened "you're aware of the student turned monsters right?"

"Yeah" Rarity answered.

"Well…. In Order to free them from the dark magic possessing them I have to break the item they hold most dear, Which sometimes involves going through said students personal items" Ninja shifted from hoof to hoof and appeared to be quite interested in the ground "I mean I don't necessarily like to do it, I mean for this instance as a fellow artist I understand the privacy of one's sketchbook. But I've had to do it enough I guess I'm getting used to doing it, especially if I think it will help"

Rarity could sense that the Ninja was getting a little upset so she decided to change the subject

"Why don't we focus on returning the sketchbook" She said gently.

"Hmm?" Ninja perked up a bit "Oh, yeah… well I'm guessing you two must have switched by accident or something, so did you see who it belonged to?"

"Yes I did" Rarity said "He was probably around highschool age, tan coat with violet markings, slightly darker violet mane, and dark... Sapphire blue... eyes"

Rarity gave Ninja a once over as she described the pony she had bumped into, the two shared a lot of similarities physically. She vaguely remembered seeing the same pony she had bumped into on the train when she and her friends were on their way to the gala, and from what she remembered the Ninja and her mystery pony had some behavior similarities as well.

" _Don't be silly Rarity"_  She thought to herself " _you are just imagining things, or tired_ " She shook her head to clear her thoughts "I Think that's' about it"

Ninja nodded "I think I've seen who you're talking about around the school, I could return this to him if you would like"

"That would work for me" Rarity said "With my meeting with Mrs. Mcfist moved back to tomorrow, which is also the day I go home so I have no available time to do it myself"

"Mrs. Mcfist?" Ninja asked before something clicked "Oh you mean Marcy"

"I did not think you would be on a first name basis with the wife of somepony who's trying to unmask you" Rarity said

"How do you know about that?" Ninja asked tucking the book in his sash

"Twilight told me along with the others after the scene Mcfist made involving you at the Gala"  
"Fair enough" Ninja said "But yeah Marcy's cool, is usually telling Mcfist to not unmask me and leave it" He paused a bit in thought "Though I think it's because she just wants one date without him running off to pursue me, I'm usually the one to apologize after Ninja related stuff ruins their date, so that's how I know her so well"

Rarity laughed before she yawned "Oh, it must be later than I thought it was" She said looking at the clock "As much as I hate cutting of a conversation early, I must go to bed if I want to be at my best tomorrow"

"Yeah I should go to" Ninja said "I've kept Howard waiting long enough"

"Thank you for visiting and returning my design book" Rarity pulled Ninja into a hug, she felt him stiffen before returning the hug.

"Not a problem" he said "Kind of my job"

"Ooh" When Rarity pulled away she took a bit of Ninja's scarf "I know we were just saying goodbye, but what type of fabric is this? It feels more like feathers than fabric yet it kind of looks like silk"

"I don't know the name, but I do know tengu feathers are used to make it" Ninja said

"How does that work?" Rarity asked confused

"Not quite sure" Ninja said, he thought for a bit "But I think Nomicon knows, I can ask him"

"Oh that would be lovely, thank you" Rarity said, grabbing her phone "Do you have a phone?"

"Hmm, Oh yeah" Ninja pulled a phone out of his sash.

The two exchanged their numbers and Ninja left bidding another goodbye, Rarity watched him fly into the night before walking back into her room to get ready for bed.

"Wait, What is a tengu?"

* * *

 

When Randy got home, he slipped back through his window to find Howard sprawled out on the floor asleep, a game over screen displayed on the TV. Being exhausted himself, he removed his mask and climbed into bed. He'll ask Nomicon about the tengu fabric tomorrow, if he remembered.

Randy groaned as his alarm rang, with his face still in his pillow he groped for his alarmclock. After he managed to turn the alarm off, he groaned but refused to move from his bed.

"Dude?" Howard grumbled from the floor "Why do you wake up so early?"

"Morning training with Nomi" Randy answered, slowly sliding out of bed. He looked around for his mask, trying to remember where he put it last night.

"Mm, kay" Howard said, dozing off again "I'm going back to sleep"

"Yeah, you do that" Randy muttered as he located his mask and grabbed it. He turned to walk to the door only to run into Nomicon, who had just finished transforming and was stretching, Satoru next to him doing the same.

"You ready" Nomicon said standing straight.

"You bet" Randy said, still tired

Nomicon picked up on his student's sleepy tone and shook his head, used to Randy's nonexistent sleep schedule.

"Let's go"

The three silently left the house and make their way to the woods, halfway there Randy remembered his question for his teacher.

"Hey Nomi?"

"Hmm?"

"How is the Tengu fabric made?"

* * *

 

"So this tengu is a Japanese bird demon with supposed fire powers and the ability to possess ponies?" Rarity asked, it was mid afternoon by now and she was just leaving her meeting with .

"That's what Starlight and I were able to find about it" Twilight answered over the phone "Ninja actually said this thing's feathers go into his suit?"

"He did" Rarity said as she strolled by the park "I'm trying to figure out how you could make feathers into fabric"

"Forget the fabric" Twilight said "How did he get the feathers?!"

"Twilight darling" Rarity said "he fights monsters and killer robots on a daily basis, I'm pretty sure collecting some feathers is a walk in the park for him"

"True" Twilight said.

Rarity stopped walking when she saw the pony from yesterday, he was sitting under a tree drawing in his sketchbook

"Twilight, Can I call you back?" She said "I want to do something real quick and it requires hanging up with you"

"Your good Rarity" Twilight answered "I got stuff to work on anyways"

"Okay" Rarity smiled "See you at Pinkie's inevitable surprise party"

"See you there"

Rarity smiled as she hung up, she glanced up at the pony once again. He did look a lot like Ninja, there were just to many similarities.

"Well only one way to find out she said as she pulled out her phone and pulled up Ninja's number.

* * *

 

Randy jumped as his phone went off, Howard was with his family so he wouldn't have called. Confused he looked at the caller ID 'Rarity'

"Huh" He breathed out, before remembering he gave her his number

"Man I was tired" He muttered as he picked up "Hello?"

"Umm this is Ninja right" Rarity's voice came through unsure.

"Oh, hey Rarity" Randy said, unaware of Rarity starting to make her way to him. "Whats up?"

"Just making sure I have the right number" Her voice sounded more confident now, and closer for some reason

"Well you do" He said continuing to draw "Boy that question would have been awkward if it had not been me" he chuckled.

"I agree to that" Rarity said, right next to Randy

Randy jumped whipping around to face Rarity, who was sitting right next to him. She didn't look smug like Randy always thought somepony who had have had if they were to discover his identity. She looked normal, like she was still talking to him as the Ninja.

"I guess this explains how you got my design book, and why you weren't phased about looking through the other one, because it was your's"

"Please don't tell anypony" Randy squeaked out.

Rarity scoffed "I wasn't planning on it" She said before her face softened " you wear that mask for a reason, but I could never imagine you wearing that thing all the time, plus being this town's hero is a job. Everypony needs time away from their job, and if for you that means taking off your mask and leading a secret life, I respect that"

Randy smiled, feeling more comfortable "thanks, though I could probably wear the mask 24/7 it's quite comfortable"

Rarity laughed "Considering that fabric it's made of I can't be surprised" She said "Speaking of fabric, did you ask Nomicon about how it is made?"

"I asked him, but to put it shortly it's very complicated" Randy said "But he said he'd write the steps down as long as you promises to not use actual tengu feathers"

"I can make that promise" Rarity said, which surprised Randy

"I was actually expecting some sort of why not" He said

"I did some research" Rarity said " I don't think I want to deal with demon feathers"

"Cool" Randy said "You said you were leaving today, so when are you leaving?"

"My train leaves in about half hour, I was on my back to my suite to pack"

Randy stood, taking time to stash his sketchbook in his saddlebag "I can meet you at the train station in about twenty minutes, Nomicon writes pretty fast, or he has all written already, I just need to find a safe place for him to transform" Nomicon flashed red from his bag as Randy finished his sentence "Looks like he wants to speak with me anyways"

Rarity nodded "I can do that, see you then" She said and trotted off.

Randy waved till she was out of sight, then duck into the nearest bush "I did not intend for her to find out, I swear!" He whispered shouted at Nomicon as he pulled him out "And you already gave me the go ahead for the fabric, which surprised me but I guess it not actually dangerous unless she credits us which she probably will… Oh" He looked at the buzzing book, nervously "It was don't use tengu feathers and keep us anonymous"

Nomicon glowed softer and let out a softer buzz to confirm, before glowing harshly again.

"Can you calm down?" Randy asked, placing Nomicon on the ground "I can fix this"

"How?" Nomicon asked, transforming. He didn't look as mad as Randy had thought he would have been "And could you please stop handing out your identity"

"Okay one, The only pony I told purposely was Howard… And maybe Danny" Randy said "the others were accidents, they're way more observant than most other ponies that I come across, I guess it doesn't help that I keep running into them as well" He muttered the last part of his sentence "And two, I'm meeting Rarity at the train station, I'll stay out of sight in the rafters and can bring it up then.

"If you remember" Nomicon said

"If you're so afraid of me forgetting about it, write it down on the instructions so Rarity will see it then" Randy growled, Starting to walk off.

"Nomicon hesitated for a bit before he used his magic to grab his student and bring him back .

Randy made a show of turning around and sitting down, an annoyed look on his face.

Nomicon forced himself to calm down "I'm sorry, You're right The fabric thing is an easy fix and for the record it was Satoru who said yes not me."

"You still grumbled a very reluctant yes, to writing it down for us" Randy teased "Soooo…. Technically you said yes"

"Not the point" Nomicon said "What I'm more worried about is the Identity thing, You're the first Ninja to willingly out their identity and now have…" he did some counting motions with his hoof "Ten ponies Who know what you look like outside the mask"

Randy look towards the ground and nodded "Well, Danny and Jake are like me so I …" He hesitated "Jake was an accident and for Danny I kind of did it to make him feel better, after he accidently revealed his identity to me" He muttered.

Nomicon sighed "I know" He said, he thought for a bit "If you want to tell the last three of the six I won't be mad, I don't think you should have the three who know keep such a secret from their friends and team"

"I won't" Randy Whispered "I understand the importance of the secrecy of my Identity, and I don't think they'll get mad at the others since this is not their secret to share" Randy kept his gaze on the ground "But if they find out they find out"

Nomicon nodded and pulled some paper and a small wrapped item out of a saddlebag that Randy had failed to notice "This is for Celestia I'm not strong enough to send it myself. But I know Rarity knows Twilight"

"Say no more "Randy happily took the item, starting to bound off before Nomicon cleared his throat. Randy turned around to witness Nomicon finish his transformation "Oh right" He muttered, grabbing Nomicon and donning his mask he left his hiding place and made his to the train station.

* * *

 

Rarity bolted into the train station "Why am I running late for everything this week?" She asked herself as she looked around the platform. She didn't see Ninja immediately, it took him leaning down from the rafters of the overhang and waving for her to actually spot him. They shared a quick greeting when she moved to stand somewhat under him and Ninja pulled out the paper and a package.

Rarity gave a confused look as she took the last item, but tucked the papers into her bag, she would read them on the trip home.

"The Package is for Celestia" Ninja explained "Nomicon was wondering if you could give it to Twilight to give to her" he trailed off and Rarity nodded.

"Of course" She said.

The two sat in award silence, neither really sure what to say to the other. This lasted till Rarity cleared her throat.

"I think I should apologize for the identity thing" She said "it was rude to do that, especially since you trusted me with you number which you gave me. I had made quite a few connections last night that were driving me mad, and I just needed to confirm my hunch" She looked Ninja in the eye "I guess I was hoping I was just making things up and it wasn't true"

"Hey, it's okay" Ninja said "If it makes you feel better, you're not the first to find out and I've only told two of the ten that know willingly" he shifted his weight on the beam he was balanced on "So you don't drive yourself crazy over this I can tell you that Twilight and Rainbow Dash found out at the Gala. Twilight matched my muzzle marking with….. Well my muzzle marking, just be careful how you bring it up"

Rarity nodded "Do you want me to give the others your number?" She asked "that way we can get together when we are here"

"Uhhh…" Ninja thought for a bit "I don't see why not, you guys are cool" he said "Just have them text me with their names so I can add them… Oh and For the fabric please don't mention that you got it for us, if you can't lie and say you made the recipe the true creator wishes to remain anonymous"

Rarity simply nodded and they both returned to their awkward silence. Both jumped when Randy's phone went off.

Randy glanced at his phone and quickly stored it

"That was my friend, There's an attack downtown" He pulled out a smoke bomb out of his sash "I wish I could wait for your train to arrive, but duty calls"

"I understand, till we see eachother again" Rarity said, a second later Ninja's smoke bomb broke on the ground and he was gone. Rarity coughed and waved her hoof in front of her face "What a horrid smell" She coughed, she backed up closer to the edge of the platform to wait for the train.

* * *

 

"I wonder what it is" Twilight wonder out loud as she handed Nomicon's package over to Spike to send, along with a note

That's for Princess Celestia to find out " Rarity responded, sorting out her items before placing them back in their respective places, "Do you want to help me make this new fabric later, I can get some feathers from Fluttershy but Nomicon is very specific in his instructions"

"Isn't following instructions what I do best?" Twilight playfully asked before the two shared a quick laugh.

"Come on we don't want to be late for Pinkie's party" Rarity said and the two trotted out of the Carousel Boutique.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I deleted and rewrite this chapter like three times  
> This chapter serves as a intro into future chapters, introducing stuff that will be important later on ;)  
> this is no where close to my best written chapter, this is just the best version I managed to produce 
> 
> As an announcement, I will not be working on this as often as I have been. This silly enough started as practice writing before I moved on and worked on my own original writing, But I got hyper focused on this instead of focusing on my other writing projects. I will still be working on this but updates will not be a frequent.
> 
> Thank you for reading   
> Have a nice Day :)


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